Governor's school to expand with concern for iconic root tree in Falls Park

For nearly two decades the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities has been perched high up on the bluff over Falls Park, a village of sorts, tucked into the forest beyond the bridge.

The in-residence, public high school for the arts has grown since it opened in 1999, and now there are plans to expand for the first time in years.

The expansion doesn't come without concern — mainly for the iconic, exposed-root beech tree at the edge of Falls Park that will be close to the school's plans for a new, nearly 10,000-square-foot music rehearsal facility. The school and the city of Greenville are in discussions about how to ensure the tree is unharmed.

In April, work is expected to begin on the new facility, which the state has budgeted $4.3 million to build.

You don’t have to be familiar with the campus to know where it’s going.

From Falls Park, it’ll be rising from the bluff near the iconic tree — call it the “Root Tree” or “Medusa Tree,” there isn’t an agreed-upon name — that has been the backdrop for countless wedding photos, Shakespeare in the Park plays and promotional material selling Greenville for the Top 10 list du jour.

The governor’s school has asked the city to help in the project, including city officials themselves performing the removal of five other trees that will have to be cut down on the bluff to make way for the project.

The school has approached the city to ensure that the removal is done with the greatest of care, said Mike Taylor, managing principal of Greenville-based architecture firm DP3, which has developed the project.

The state will select a contractor through its typical competitive-bid process.

“We’re going to get a low bidder, and with a low bidder there’s no way to know who the tree surgeon might be,” Taylor said. “We will feel like it’s more of a risk than we should take, from the city’s perspective and the school’s perspective.”

In addition to the tree removal, the school is asking the city to pay up to $30,000 to alter either end of the school’s main connector, city-owned Furman College Way, so that fire trucks can reach the new addition.

City Manager John Castile said that while the city supports the project and is inclined to provide assitance, more investigation will need to be done to make sure the tree is preserved

“If something goes wrong, we need to understand that we did everything we could,” Castile said. “We’ll do everything we can to make sure that the iconic tree is taken care of.”

The American beech tree stands on school property on the other side of a stone footbridge where, at the Falls Park amphitheater, arts performances and protests often take place.

The tree, according to deputy parks director Dale Westermeier, is probably about three-quarters of a century old.

The intricate, exposed root system has become a favorite spot for photos and, while discouraged, carved initials. The bluff was cut when Furman College Way was created to accommodate Furman University.

In 1851, the university took residence on the 25-acre site and remained for a century before moving to its current campus in 1953. The university established an arboretum in the area around the beech tree.

The school was demolished, a shopping mall built and the current County Square government complex in its place, but a piece of Furman land was set aside for Falls Park.

Under the leadership of Dr. Virginia Uldrick, the state expanded its summer arts program into a nine-month, in-residence governor’s school located on the former university campus site.

The state contributed $12 million, which was matched with $14.5 million through a volunteer capital campaign.

The school, designed under the concept of a Tuscan village, opened in September 1999.

Today, it serves 235 high school students who live on campus and study dance, visual arts, drama, writing, music and humanities.

In the two decades since its opening, growth in the program has created space challenges, said John Warner, the school's vice president of finance and administration.

Recently, Warner said, he had to break up a meeting because a student was practicing French horn outside a conference room.

“When the school was built, they kind of ran out of money and skimped a little on the music space," Warner said. “Right now, we have kids practicing in elevators and stairwells. This fills the need that we have for music teaching and teaching space and ensemble space.”

The expansion was originally envisioned as a building extension but has become a separate space. One part of that consideration was how close an extension would have come to the bluff — and the tree.

“What we were trying to do as a school was not make it anything worse than whatever might have happened in its lifetime," Warner said.

The school hired an arborist to assess the site and suggest how best to manage the trees. The arborist identified five trees that need removal and suggested a 90-foot buffer between any work and the beech tree, Taylor said.

The trees identified for removal are beyond their lifespan, Taylor said, but the beech tree, despite its exposed roots, appears to be healthy.

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