The Horticultural Heiress: Enid Haupt’s Blooming Legacy

April 13, 2006

It's the birthday of Enid Annenberg Haupt - a woman whose green fingers and even greener wallet transformed the horticultural landscape of America forever.

One might say she bloomed rather spectacularly from privileged roots. The president of the New York Botanical Garden called her, quite accurately, "The greatest patron American horticulture has ever known." High praise indeed, but entirely deserved.

Enid was one of eight children - one son and seven daughters born to Sadie and Moses Annenberg. Her father, a publishing magnate of considerable means, established the family fortune that Enid would later deploy with such magnificent horticultural intent.

After a first marriage that withered on the vine, Enid's second union to Ira Haupt proved far more fertile ground for her passions. It was Ira who inadvertently planted the seed of her lifelong obsession when he presented her with a cymbidium orchid during their engagement - a flower then as rare in America as modesty is in politics.

Enid, displaying the decisiveness that would characterize her later philanthropic endeavors, promptly informed Ira that for a wedding present, she would require precisely thirteen cymbidium orchids. Not jewels, not property, but living things she could nurture with her own hands.

How deliciously ironic that the cultivar Cymbidium Enid Haupt, named in her honor, became renowned for its fertility! Enid herself could not bear children, though she and Ira eventually adopted a daughter named Pamela.

Her brother Walter, recognizing steel beneath the soil-stained fingernails, thrust her into publishing despite her initial terror. Enid, it transpired, possessed numerous talents beyond coaxing reluctant orchids into bloom. She wrote with flair, dressed with impeccable taste, and - as it turned out - could manage a magazine with remarkable acumen.

From 1953 to 1970, Enid helmed Seventeen magazine with such success that it outstripped both Glamour and Mademoiselle in popularity. At its zenith, more than half the teenage girls in America devoured its pages—though one suspects they were more interested in lipstick than ligustrum.

By the time she departed this mortal garden in 2005, Enid had bestowed over $140 million upon her favorite charities—most of them dedicated to the cultivation of public green spaces. This extraordinary generosity earned her the sobriquets "fairy godmother of American horticulture" and "patron saint of public gardens, " far more elegant epithets than most of us can hope for upon our earthly departure.

The New York Botanical Garden received the lion's share of her bounty - some $34 million, including $5 million specifically earmarked for restoring a magnificent Victorian glass greenhouse that would otherwise have been sacrificed to progress. It now stands, fittingly, as the Enid Haupt Conservatory - a cathedral of chlorophyll preserving her legacy.

In 1993, Enid confessed to the Times with characteristic frankness:

"I must have a project. That should be my middle name; Project. I'm really and truly not happy without one."

And it was our dear Enid who declared, with the conviction of a woman who had found her purpose:

"Nature is my religion. There is no life in cements and paint."

While excavating the particulars of Enid's life, I unearthed a fascinating article in the Austin American-Statesman from June 18, 1971, which offers a glimpse into her post-Seventeen existence.

Imagine, if you will, her Park Avenue apartment, where conventional window dressings had been banished in favor of potted camellia plants flanking each aperture. These delicate blooms required thrice-daily misting to survive the arid Manhattan air - a regimen Enid maintained with religious devotion.

Her drawing room boasted a rug that she had pursued for twenty-three years before finally capturing it for her collection. This prize from the Palace of Versailles featured antique hollyhocks and tulips against a rose background - bringing the garden indoors when she could not be among her beloved plants.

Enid declared with characteristic passion:

"Plants are my life. I feel responsible for them."

Yet she was no helicopter gardener, cautioning against excessive coddling with wisdom that might apply equally to children and perennials:

"I have a protective attitude without pampering. If you pamper a plant, It's like a person. It grows too soft."

A lesson, perhaps, for all of us who tend either gardens or the young shoots of humanity. Sometimes the greatest kindness is allowing roots to struggle a little through resistant soil.