Un jardin Gaudi à Anacortes, WA? Pas tout à fait – ce fut un des nôtres!

Le 13 avril 2020

Nos bons amis Gisèle Samson et Jacques Vallée ont découvert un petit trésor architectural à Anacortes, au Washington, que l’on peut facilement joindre par route ou traversier de la C.-B. C’est le jardin Causland Memorial Park, où le trifluvien Jean Baptiste LePage a construit un pittoresque jardin, qui rappelle tout à fait les œuvres du maître espagnol.

Le parc portait à son origine le nom du propriétaire du terrain, le Great Northern Railroad Park. Il fut vendu à la ville d’Anacortes en 1903. Il avait été construit à la mémoire de 15 soldats tués pendant la Première guerre mondiale et qui avaient habité les îles San Juan environnantes, dont Harry Leon Causland de l’île Guemes. Le parc évoque aujourd’hui le souvenir de tous les anciens combattants de toutes le guerres auxquelles ont participé les É.-U.

LePage aurait placé lui-même à la main toutes les pierres , bien que des bénévoles y travaillèrent aussi, y compris dans le rassemblement des pierres. Avec sa femme Bernadette et leurs deux filles, il habita Anacortes pendant l’exécution du projet.

Un grand merci à Gisèle et à Jacques d’avoir partagé cette perle voisine avec nous. À visiter… quand la situation nous le permettra.

Les photos sont de Jacques Vallée.

 

Voici le texte du panneau didactique du jardin qui porte sur LePage:

 

“Jean Baptiste LePage was born in Rimouski, Quebec in 1857. He had a very diverse and exciting life. He contracted with the Canadian government to do early surveys and maps of the Canadian Northwest. Jean LePage must have loved adventure and he did not marry until quite late at the age of fifty. Whit his bride, Bernadette, he farmed for a time in Saskatchewan before applying his artistic talents to landscape design.

LePage’s first project was a retaining wall in Butte, Montana’s Columbia Gardens, completed in 1918. Columbia Gardens was a large amusement park and gardens established in 1899, which was demolished to make way to open-pit mining in 1983.

The next park was Anacortes: I was through LePage’s friendship with railroadman Sam Hill that he landed the job. Construction began in 1919 and continued through 1921. The amphitheater, bandstand, and bulkheads were built out of thousands of locally gathered rocks: The red rocks are tuffaceous argillite from the Ginnett rock quarry on Fidalgo Island, the white rocks are mostly quartz, and the brown sandstone is from nearby islands. All were worked into designs in the rock walls, then hand-painted and set in cement. In 1926 the park was extended westward to fill the entire block.

Following the Causland Park construction, the LePages moved to Yakima to design a small park, then to Oakland, California. During the worst of the Depression the LePage home became a known stopping point for many wayfarers and many times the family went without in order to help others. Jean continued working at a private college up until the time of his death in 1939.

Since 1981, Causland Memorial Park holds the distinction of being included in the National Register of Historic Places. Comparisons of LePage’s work with that of Spanish architect Anton Gaudi are made in the National Historic Register documentation, and echoed by many visitors.”