Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center (252 acres) are private botanical gardens and a nature preserve located in the center of Orange, Texas.
H. J. Lutcher Stark began work on Shangri La in 1942. His azalea gardens first opened to the public in 1946, but in the mid-1950s they were destroyed by very cold weather. The area was subsequently closed to the public and maintained on a very limited scale. It was then bequeathed by Nelda C. Stark to the Nelda C. and H. J. Lutcher Stark Foundation (established 1961), which has been working to restore the botanical gardens and create a nature center.
Shangri La contains a mixed deciduous forest, cypress tupelo swamp, wetlands, and a large lake. Many of its trees were heavily damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Rita in September 2005. The formal Botanical Gardens contain more than 300 plant species in five formal "rooms" as well as four sculpture "rooms." Adjacent to the Botanical Gardens is a bird blind which allows visitors to observe nesting birds in Shangri La’s heronry.
It opened in Spring 2008 to close again for nearly six months due to the damage sustained from Hurricane Ike (Sept. 2008) and was reopened to the public on March 7, 2009.
Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center is the first project in Texas and the 50th project in the world to earn the U.S. Green Building Council's Platinum certification for LEED-NC; the design and construction of Shangri La reached the highest green building and performance measures.
Grand Isle is a town in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, United States, located on a barrier island of the same name in the Gulf of Mexico. The island is at the mouth of Barataria Bay where it meets the gulf. As of the 2010 census, the town's resident population was 1,296, down from 1,541 in 2000; during summers, the population, including tourists and seasonal residents, sometimes increases to over 20,000. Grand Isle is statistically part of the New Orleans−Metairie−Kenner Metropolitan Statistical Area, though it is not connected to New Orleans' continuous urbanized area.
Corpus Christi, colloquially Corpus, is a coastal city in the South Texas region of the U.S. state of Texas. The county seat of Nueces County, it also extends into Aransas, Kleberg, and San Patricio Counties. It is 130 miles southeast of San Antonio. Its political boundaries encompass Nueces Bay and Corpus Christi Bay. Its zoned boundaries include small land parcels or water inlets of three neighboring counties.
Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. Hilton describes Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise, particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia – a permanently happy land, isolated from the world. In the novel, the people who live at Shangri-La are almost immortal, living hundreds of years beyond the normal lifespan and only very slowly aging in appearance. The name also evokes the imagery of the exoticism of the Orient.
The Atlanta Botanical Garden is a 30 acres (12 ha) botanical garden located adjacent to Piedmont Park in Midtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Incorporated in 1976, the garden's mission is to "develop and maintain plant collections for the purposes of display, education, conservation, research and enjoyment."
Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens is a botanical garden set in Schenley Park, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is a City of Pittsburgh historic landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Beaumont Botanical Gardens, also known as the Tyrrell Park Botanical Gardens, includes botanical gardens and the 10,000 sq ft Warren Looseconservatory. The gardens are located in 500 acre Tyrrell Park at 6088 Babe Zaharias Drive, Beaumont, Texas, USA. An extra benefit is that the gardens are located in a migratory bird flyway. Tyrrell Park is listed on the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail map.
The Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT) is a global botanical research institute and learning center located in the Cultural District of Fort Worth, Texas. BRIT moved to its new 70,000-square-foot (6,500 m2) facility adjacent to the Fort Worth Botanic Garden from their original downtown location in spring 2011.
The New Orleans Botanical Garden is a botanical garden located in City Park, New Orleans, Louisiana. The first classical garden in New Orleans, it was funded by the Works Progress Administration.
City Park, a 1,300-acre (5.3 km2) public park in New Orleans, Louisiana, is the 87th largest and 20th-most-visited urban public park in the United States. City Park is approximately 50% larger than Central Park in New York City, the municipal park recognized by Americans nationwide as the archetypal urban greenspace. Although it is an urban park whose land is owned by the City of New Orleans, it is administered by the City Park Improvement Association, an arm of state government, not by the New Orleans Parks and Parkways Department. City Park is unusual in that it is a largely self-supporting public park, with most of its annual budget derived from self-generated revenue through user fees and donations. In the wake of the enormous damage inflicted upon the park due to Hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism began to partially subsidize the park's operations.
The Stark Museum of Art in Orange, Texas, houses one of the nation's most significant collections of American Western art. The Western Art collection conveys the artistic interpretation of the western region over two centuries.
Living Shangri-la is a mixed-use skyscraper in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and is the tallest building in the city and province. The 62-storey Shangri-La tower contains a 5-star hotel and its offices on the first 15 floors, with condominium apartment units occupying the rest of the tower. The building's podium complex also includes a spa, Urban Fare specialty grocery store, a Vancouver Art Gallery public display, and a curated public sculpture garden. The high-rise stands 200.86 metres (659 ft) tall and there is a private roof garden on floor 61. It is the 43rd tallest building in Canada.
The Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design is housed in the former home of Doris Duke near Diamond Head just outside Honolulu, Hawaii. It is now owned and operated as a public museum of the arts and cultures of the Islamic world by the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art (DDFIA). Guided tours depart from the Honolulu Museum of Art, which operates the tours in co-operation with DDFIA.
The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin is the state botanical garden and arboretum of Texas. The center features more than 900 species of native Texas plants in both garden and natural settings and is home to a breadth of educational programs and events. The center is 284 acres and located 10 miles southwest of downtown Austin, Texas just inside the edge of the distinctive Texas hill country. It straddles both Edwards Plateau and Texas Blackland Prairies ecosystems.
The West Orange-Cove Consolidated Independent School District is a public school district in Orange County, Texas (USA).
The San Antonio Botanical Garden is a 33-acre (130,000 m2), non-profit botanical garden in San Antonio, Texas, United States, and the city's official botanical garden.
Duke Farms is an estate that was established by James Buchanan Duke, an American entrepreneur who founded Duke Power and the American Tobacco Company. Located in Hillsborough, New Jersey the property is managed by the Doris Duke Foundation after the death of Doris Duke, the second owner. After extensive reorganization "Duke Farms" was opened to the public on May 19, 2012.
The Baytown Nature Center is located in Baytown, Texas, 20 miles (32 km) east of Houston. It is located on a 450-acre (1.8 km2) peninsula along the Houston Ship Channel and surrounded on three sides by Burnet Bay, Crystal Bay, and Scott Bay.
The W.H. Stark House is a fully restored, 14,000-square-foot (1,300 m2) Victorian home located on the corner between Green Avenue and Sixth Street in Orange, Texas.
Lutcher Theater is a privately owned, 1,450-seat, non-profit performing arts facility located at 707 Main Street in Orange, Texas. It was built in 1980 and is the largest Performing Arts Series from Houston, Texas, to New Orleans, Louisiana, with annual attendance at approximately 30,000 adults and children.
H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports is located on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin, the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports is a library, archive and museum dedicated to the study and preservation of the world of physical culture. Through the donations of the Nelda C. and H.J. Lutcher Stark Foundation and the Betty and Joe Weider Foundation, the Stark Center opened in 2009, providing access to the Center’s extensive collection of materials on weight training, bodybuilding, athletic conditioning, alternative medicine, and other forms of self-improvement. The collection, considered the largest of its kind, comprises thousands of books and magazines, an extensive photograph collection, correspondence files, posters, videotapes, films, and artifacts. The Center’s directors, Drs. Jan and Terry Todd, both former powerlifting athletes, are committed to preserving the history of physical culture.
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