Ryan Blomfield
Imagine you retire at 39, but the year is 1840 so there are no Ferraris or Gulfstreams to blow your money on. What would you do? Create an American botanical garden in the style of the great ones of Europe, of course. That's what Henry Shaw did when he developed the 75 acres that surrounded his country home into one of the most beautiful places in Middle America. The gardens include his historic house and a Victorian-era observatory, one of the largest Japanese gardens on the continent, and a Turkish garden reminiscent of a Mediterranean villa. Its centerpiece is the Climatron, a geodesic dome where you can experience climates from Hawaii, Arizona, and the coast of Italy all in a Midwestern winter's afternoon, before stepping back outside to meet blown-glass sculptures and 6,800 species of plants.
