Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park

Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park's spectacular growth is
Fred Meijer's greatest legacy

GRAND RAPIDS - I had the good fortune to grow up in Detroit, only a few miles away from Greenfield Village and The Henry Ford Museum.

I remember the first time, as a young boy, I visited it and was amazed at the sensation of standing in the very laboratory where Thomas Edison built the first practical incandescent light bulb.

Even as a kid, I marveled, not only at the logistics of transporting Edison's buildings and equipment across the country from New Jersey, but at the vision and foresight of Henry Ford, who conceived the living museum that's arguably his greatest legacy of all.

FULL COVERAGE: Fred Meijer, West Michigan billionaire grocery magnate, dies at 91

Today, The Henry Ford, as it's now known, is the top museum attraction in Michigan. In second place, is Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park. Fred Meijer, who died Friday, is the namesake and benefactor of Meijer Gardens, but also the visionary behind the sculpture park and botanical gardens that might be his greatest legacy of all.

The growth of Meijer Gardens, which opened in 1995, is nothing short of astonishing.

In 2010, Meijer Gardens, which had been averaging a half million visitors a year for several years running, drew more than 640,000 people. Earlier in the year, in the same month that Meijer Gardens celebrated its 15th anniversary in April 2010, The Art Newspaper, based in London, ranked Meijer Gardens among the 100 most-visited art museums in the world - a 15-year-old institution ranked against others dating back centuries. Patricia Schultz, author of "1,000 Places to See Before You Die," took it one step further the year before, listing Meijer Gardens as No. 13 on her list of top 30 must-see museums in the world in a 2009 article for Sky Magazine.

In the 15th century, Leonardo da Vinci conceived a plan to cast a monumental, bronze horse that he was unable to realize in his lifetime. Some 500 years later, with the financial backing and moral support of Fred Meijer, artist Nina Akamu created "The American Horse," based on Leonardo's designs, casting not one, but two copies, one for the city of Milan, Italy, the other which towers 24-feet over Meijer Gardens today.

Not far from the Da Vinci Horse is the Meijer Gardens Amphitheater, which has attracted such entertainers as Bela Fleck, Garrison Keillor, The Doobie Brothers and Keb' Mo' since it opened in 2003. Lyle Lovett has been at Meijer Gardens enough times that he joked in 2009 about visiting the sculptures and catching up with them as old friends.

Perhaps the most celebrated visitor of all has been Auguste Rodin's "The Thinker." In 2007, when the Detroit Institute of Arts closed entirely for a $138 million renovation project, it sent its famous sculpture to spend its summer at Meijer Gardens.

At Meijer Gardens' 10th anniversary gala in 2005, which I attended, Fred insisted, "What happened here is way beyond our imagination." But as early as 2002, at the dedication of Meijer Gardens Sculpture Park, Bruce Cole, then chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington, D.C., told Fred, "You have created something important and lasting."

I had the pleasure of meeting Fred Meijer on many occasions. Just weeks before Meijer Gardens opened in 1995, he gave me a personal tour, outdoors through mud-covered fields, and indoors through the Lena Meijer Conservatory, still under construction.

Even sitting on folding chairs in an unfurnished conference room, the irrepressible Fred Meijer - everyone really did call him Fred - was as excited as a school boy about to go on summer holiday. In his usual self-deprecating manner, Fred chatted nonchalantly about finally getting his growing collection of bronze sculptures by Marshall Fredericks out of his warehouses.

But I have no doubt that the mind that first hit upon the notion of super-sizing a corner grocery store already was thinking much bigger than simply showing off his personal collection of sculpture.

Today, Meijer Gardens displays work by Magdalena Abakanowicz, Jonathan Borofsky, Dale Chihuly, Mark di Suvero, Henry Moore, Claes Oldenburg and many, more outstanding artists among some 170 works in its growing collection.

Fred's passion for the institution was genuine and infectious. At the 2002 dedication of the Sculpture Garden, I recall Fred was as bubbly as a kid in a candy store.

No doubt wonderful dreams will continue to grow and blossom at Meijer Gardens -- thanks to Fred.