Photo by Alexandria Living Magazine
Winkler Botanical Preserve in early spring.
Winkler Botanical Preserve, a hidden and quiet oasis tucked out of sight near apartment buildings, I-395 and commercial buildings, is changing hands. Located in the Alexandria’s west end, the preserve provides public access to nature and protects plants native to the Potomac region.
Long a special place for summer day-camp and hikers, the 44.6-acre preserve will be in new hands, under the guardianship of the Northern Virginia Regional Parks Authority. NOVA Parks and Winkler announced the transfer of ownership Tuesday, noting that the Winkler Organization will provide NOVA Parks with $1 million for capital needs and more than $3 million as an operating endowment to support educational programs and improvements. In addition, the Winkler Organization is gifting the City of Alexandria with $1 million to advance community engagement and learning resources for City residents and visitors of the Preserve.
NOVA Parks will host a ceremony Thursday, Sept, 15 at 6:30 p.m., with local leaders, including Mayor Justin M. Wilson, to commemorate the transfer.
The preserve features streams, a pond, a waterfall and trails, was created in 1979 as a charity aiming to protect natural space in rapidly urbanizing Alexandria. Located at 5400 Roanoke Ave., it was established by Catherine Winkler Herman, a philanthropist and avid environmentalist, in memory of her late husband, real estate developer Mark Winkler.
The Preserve was designed by their daughter Tori Winkler Thomas, a landscape architect, as a special place to protect native plants such as swamp rose mallow and wildlife such as ospreys and hawks. The Preserve’s distinctive log cabin headquarters, Catherine’s Lodge, long served as the center for the ecological education programs Thomas designed and oversaw.
“A generation of Alexandria youth, including both of my children, have enjoyed the outdoors at the Winkler Botanical Preserve,” Wilson said. “With the funds the City is receiving to help our school-age children go to the Preserve and the renewed programming that NOVA Parks will bring to the site, a new generation will be enriched in this wonderful place. We are profoundly grateful for the generosity of the Winkler Organization to ensure the accessibility of this natural space for generations to come.”
NOVA Parks provides school programs and summer camps, with operations at Potomac Overlook Regional Park in Arlington and Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna. Partnering with the City, new environmental education programs will be developed at the preserve for school groups, and the once popular summer camps will return to the site.
“The enormity of this gift cannot be overstated, Cate Magennis Wyatt, chair of NOVA Parks. "Catherine Winkler Herman’s vision and Tori Winkler’s brilliance have created an unparalleled botanical oasis within our highly urbanized Northern Virginia."
“NOVA Parks is honored to be the new stewards of the Winkler Botanical Preserve and on behalf of the generations to come, express our eternal gratitude to the Winkler family,” she added.
The Winkler Organization will also make an additional grant of $100,000 to ALIVE!, the oldest and largest private safety net program in the City of Alexandria dedicated to fighting poverty and hunger. This grant will supply food and other basic needs to high-need families living in neighborhoods close to the Winkler Botanical Preserve.
"The Winkler Preserve has been an important part of our family for decades — an oasis in the Northern Virginia megalopolis, said Rep. Don Beyer, whose congressional district includes Alexandria. Beyer quoted from American poet Walt Whitman in describing the gratitude for the future of the park and its promise for future residents.
“No one ever said, 'the great indoors!' poet Walt Whitman wrote. ‘Now I see the secret of making the best persons, it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.’ Thank you to NOVA Parks for preserving Winkler for generations to come.”
The ceremony on Thursday will take place at The Winkler Botanical Preserve, located at 5400 Roanoke Avenue, Alexandria 22311. Due to limited on-site parking capacity, parking is available a few blocks away at the William Ramsay Elementary School (5700 Sanger Ave, Alexandria, VA 22311). NOVA Parks will operate vans to shuttle attendees to the site.
