Saturday, October 16, 2004
Guiding hand lets Krohn blossom
Eden Park gem: A Cincinnati treasure reopens
By Cliff Radel
Enquirer staff writer
WALNUT HILLS - When it comes to plants, Ruth Ann Spears doesn't discriminate.
Whether her plants are of leaves and limbs or glass and steel, the manager of the Krohn Conservatory in Eden Park believes in giving them a good pruning.
![[img]](krohn.jpg)
Ruth Ann Spears, manager of the Krohn Conservatory.
(Enquirer photo/Steven M. Herppich)
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"It helps them grow bigger and more beautiful," she said as she sat in her cramped basement office.
Spears' approach has transformed the 71-year-old Cincinnati landmark.
Before she became manager in 1995 and initiated Krohn's highly successful annual butterfly show, the city's best-known plant for producing exotic flora was beloved but dowdy.
Today, after a $3 million remodeling project that closed the building for the past four summers, the Krohn stands ready for The Art of Glass, Friday night's grand reopening reception, and next Saturday's public reopening.
The conservatory gleams with a new skin of 10,000 shatterproof glass panes and teems with a renewed vigor. The driving force behind the remodeling and rejuvenation is Spears, a dynamic 48-year-old Cincinnati native.
She is a hands-on manager.
A well-used, industrial-strength lopper, perfect for pruning, and a garden fork, missing one tine, stand in her office. She waved her hands in disagreement over being called the Krohn's driving force.
"It's just a little bit of me and a whole lot of lots of other people," she said.
Her protestations aside, Spears realizes the importance of what she manages. Resembling a giant-sized 1930s glass-and-chrome diner, the art-deco greenhouse occupies a special place in Cincinnati's consciousness.
"We're right up there with Skyline and Graeter's," she said. "When tourists come to Cincinnati or people have family in from out of town, you bring them here. Then you go for chili and ice cream. We're a destination."
And an asset. The city-owned conservatory is an increasing rarity in an age of municipal budget crunches and privatization.
"When a city like Cincinnati has a conservatory like the Krohn, it sends a powerful message," said Dan Stark, executive director of the Wilmington, Del.-based American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta.
"It tells people that they can see plants that do not live in our northern climes and whose existence may be in danger," Stark said. "The existence of a conservatory also shows that the city readily accepts the rejuvenating effects green space plays on people."
Krohn's green space also means greenbacks for the city.
George Vredeveld, director of the University of Cincinnati's Economic Center for Research and Education, has pondered the conservatory's vital statistics: 200,000 visitors a year, 40 percent from out of town.
"The Krohn is a pretty good draw," he said.
Keying on the 40 percent figure, he added: "That's about the same percentage of out-of-towners as the Reds draw to their home games. They do about 10 times the attendance of the Krohn."
Vredeveld's center has placed the Reds' annual economic impact at $253 million. That would put the Krohn's annual figure at an estimated $25.3 million.
The economist observed that the venerable destination "has other accrued values that add to Cincinnati's quality of life."
Spears knows about these values. They help attract many of the visitors annually passing under the Krohn's towering palms and gingerly gliding by the outstretched cacti arms in the conservatory's Desert Garden.
The 26,660-square-foot greenhouse is not only a sanctuary for rare plants. It is also a repository for generations of memories.
"This place was such a big deal when it opened," Spears said. "Eight thousand five hundred people stood in line for hours to get in."
They still stand in line to view the lilies on Easter Sunday. Spears comes to work that day at 7 a.m. Lines start forming at 6 a.m.
"On Easter and in December and in the spring and summer, families come back year after year," she said. "They want to rekindle the warm and fuzzy memories when they were children and they came here with their grandparents and with schools groups. To preserve those memories, and pass them onto the next generation, they take pictures of their day at the Krohn Conservatory."
Spears cherishes a photo she has of her mother sitting on a bench outside the storied building. But her fondest memories of the place involve skipping school.
"In my junior year at Woodward High School, I skipped my morning classes to come to Krohn to walk among the plants."
That's how she prepared for her favorite afternoon class, botany.
"My botany teacher, Mr. Ruley, made me realize that working with plants was what I wanted to do the rest of my life."
After graduating from Cincinnati Technical College with an associate degree in ornamental horticulture, Spears discovered "they weren't hiring women at conservatories in the '70s." So, she took jobs waiting tables, managing restaurants and selling meat to nursing homes before buying a plant store.
When the manager's job opened at Krohn, Spears applied. After she passed the audition, she found herself in her "dream job."
At her workplace, she routinely sees people walk in the door and hears them exclaim, " 'Oh, my God!' as they stare in wonder at these cool plants."
This reaction always makes Spears think of her title. To her, she is more than the Krohn's manager.
"I'm the caretaker of a Cincinnati treasure."
Comparing greenhouses
Here's how Cincinnati's Krohn Conservatory stacks up against other regional public greenhouses:
• Opened: 1933.
• Annual attendance: 200,000 for 2003.
• Size: 26,660 square feet.
• Opened: July 15, 2003.
• Annual attendance: 190,000 since opening.
• Size: 18,000 square feet.
• Opened: 1895.
• Annual attendance: 228,000 for 2003.
• Size: 74,000 square feet.
• Opened: 1955.
• Annual attendance: figures not kept.
• Size: 10,000 square feet.
• "The Art of Glass," grand reopening reception, 7-10 p.m. Friday, $30 per person, $40 per couple. (513) 352-4079.
• Conservatory's public reopening, 10 a.m. Oct. 23. Orchid display opens at noon. Doors close at 5 p.m.
• "Cincinnati Holiday - Classic Children's Stories," traditional holiday show with poinsettias and trains, Nov. 20-Jan. 2 (special evening hours Dec. 4-30).
• Live manger scene outside Krohn sponsored by Western & Southern Financial Group, Dec. 3-Jan. 1.
• Spring Show - "Spring Meadows - A Farewell to Winter," March 19 to April 24.
• 10th annual Butterfly Show, May 7 to June 19.
• Location: Eden Park, Walnut Hills.
• Opened: March 26, 1933, five days before Union Terminal's dedication ceremony.
• Cost to build: $179,000.
• Cost for 2001-04 remodeling: $3 million.
• Entrance hall height: 45 feet.
• Waterfall's height in Palm House rain forest: 20 feet.
• Plant species on display: 1,000.
• Plants in conservatory: 5,000.
• Original name: Eden Park Greenhouse.
• Named for: Irwin M. Krohn in 1937, on his 25th anniversary as a member of the Board of Park Commissioners.
• Money collected annually in fish ponds: $200, mostly pennies.
