McHenry Mansion center’s Spring Garden Tea inaugurates new patio venue in Modesto

The annual Mother’s Day weekend tea party at the McHenry Mansion goes alfresco this year, moving to the newly revamped courtyard garden at the historic home’s nearby Visitor Center.

This year’s tea also has been renamed and scaled down – but freshened up – to fit the picturesque patio located just down 15th Street from the Modesto mansion. The move was necessitated when the mansion was rented out for a private event next weekend.

The Spring Garden Tea will offer one seating at 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 7, with about 50 seats available, according to Anne Hatheway, manager of the Visitor Center. Proceeds benefit the nonprofit McHenry Mansion Foundation.

Hatheway said the move provides the opportunity for an inaugural event on the newly landscaped patio, a chance for people to see the outdoor area that is now available to rent for private events.

“It’s a chance to initiate the patio and help people know we’re here,” she said.

The Visitor Center patio began its facelift about a year ago when a mural was completed on one wall by local artist Miguel Dominguez. After that was finished, Hatheway said, mansion docent Shanaz Bernhard asked if she could work on cleaning up the garden and putting in fresh plants and flowers. The answer, of course, was yes.

“This is such a beautiful place, it really is,” Bernhard said standing inside the Visitors Center last week with Hatheway. (But the garden) was kind of neglected. Anne deserves a better garden.”

A transplant from the Washington, D.C., suburbs, Bernhard worked in residential architecture – but landscape is her passion. When she went to school, she wanted to study landscape architecture, but her father told her to pursue the residential field instead. “I went into residential, but landscape is in my heart,” she said.

After moving to Modesto, Bernhard missed the historical surroundings of the East Coast. But once she discovered the McHenry Mansion, she found a place like home.

“The McHenry Mansion fulfills the historical and the architectural for me,” she said.

So Bernhard, who became a docent there in 2014, put her landscape passion and talents to work and began her task of sprucing up the historic home’s Visitor Center patio, clearing the area, adding plants and several flower pots. Now, she stops by about twice a week to maintain the area.

Hatheway hopes the new courtyard garden will attract bridal or baby showers, small weddings, birthday parties and other events – all to help the foundation preserve the McHenry Mansion and keep it open to the public.

The Visitor Center is the first stop for those who want to tour the Victorian mansion. Visitors begin there for a short video on the history of the home and the McHenry family before docents lead them just down the block to the mansion. Free tours are offered 12:30 to 4 p.m. daily except Saturdays.

The center also houses a gift shop that sells curios, cards, books and other items. The shop, open noon to 4 p.m. Sundays through Fridays, offers tea samplings with several varieties brewed and served to the public the second Wednesday of each month.

For Saturday’s Spring Garden Tea, the center’s signature Mansion Tea will be served, along with sandwiches and desserts. Reservations are required.

This story was originally published April 29, 2016 at 2:09 PM with the headline "McHenry Mansion center’s Spring Garden Tea inaugurates new patio venue in Modesto."