Inside the homes, gardens, and community spirit behind the Valley’s signature tour

By Lisa Coburn

Tickets are now on sale for one of the Greenbrier Valley’s most beloved traditions, the Greenbrier Valley Home and Garden Tour, returning Saturday, June 13, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. This year marks its 40th year of opening private homes and gardens across Lewisburg and White Sulphur Springs to the public.

From the start, this event has always been about more than beautiful spaces. It’s about the people who quietly shape the character of these towns year after year.

The tour is presented by members and friends of five local garden clubs: the Bluebell, Greenbrier Gardeners, Lewisburg House and Garden, Old White, and Savannah Garden Clubs, continuing a long-standing tradition of community-led beautification that can be seen in everything from downtown flower barrels to carefully tended public spaces throughout the valley.

Tickets are available now through Garden Club members, the Greenbrier Valley Visitor Center in Lewisburg, Gillespie’s Floral and Productions in White Sulphur Springs. The General Lewis Inn will offer ticket sales on the day of the event, with additional day-of-tour sales at each home. More information can also be found on the Greenbrier Valley Home and Garden Tour Facebook page and greenbriervalleyhomeandgardentour.com.

This year’s tour offers an especially rich mix of spaces, from elegant historic residences and thoughtfully restored homes to mid-century living spaces, working studios, and gardens that range from formal symmetry to relaxed, wild beauty filled with color and texture.

For Katie Ickes, chair of marketing and publicity for the event, assisted by her daughter, Mary Claire Ickes-Warden, the tour’s meaning runs much deeper than its visual appeal.

She described the heart of the event in a way that felt like a reminder of something often overlooked, the everyday effort behind the beauty visitors enjoy.

“What inspired the tour is that it was birthed out of necessity because the garden clubs, they fund a lot of the beautification efforts in our two towns, White Sulphur Springs and Lewisburg, and it’s a little known fact. A lot of times you will see the ladies out with their little carts and all their gardening tools that they’re working to maintain the areas and they plant in the spring and do the upkeep. It’s an expensive proposition to keep that going. And of course, they are assisted by the cities and some foundations that give some money. But the garden clubs are the true backbone of beautification not only in our two cities, but nationwide. They are sort of the unsung heroes of when you come into a town and you just think it’s so beautiful and quaint. Well, there’s been a lot of sweat equity that has gone into it by these garden club members. I know in our own garden club, we have members that are in their twenties and we have members that are in their nineties and are still very active in the club and the workings of the club. Maybe not out there planting the planters like they did for decades, but they’re still very active and an integral part of our clubs.”

That multigenerational spirit shows up everywhere in the Greenbrier Valley, and it’s part of what makes the tour feel less like an event and more like a shared celebration of place.

Visitors don’t just walk through homes. They step into stories.

“I think that it’s going to be a destination that they want to revisit. Because we do have a unique quality of life here in the Greenbrier Valley, and I think once people experience it, they want more. Some of my very close friends have relocated from various areas throughout the nation to Lewisburg, just from a day trip or passing through and fell in love. If you’re a local, then you just have a greater appreciation for the history, and the heritage of our area, and how we have some homes that are 1800s, early 1900s homes, and the history is pretty fascinating about the first occupants, and how their lives were, and what they did to build the communities now that everyone wants to go to or live within.”

This year’s featured stops reflect that layered history in especially vivid ways. One Lewisburg home has been featured in a national holiday publication and includes Greenbrier Resort-inspired décor tied to Dorothy Draper and Carleton Varney design influences. Another, Hillcrest in White Sulphur Springs, offers a striking look at local history and transformation. At the Inman House in White Sulphur Springs there will be landscape design booklets on hand, and the owner, who is an experienced landscape designer, will be available to speak with guests.

“We have one home that has been featured in a holiday edition of a national publication, and it has Carleton Varney and the Greenbrier memorabilia, and I think that the decor is going to be very unique. And that’s in Lewisburg. We have another home that’s never been on a tour that was owned by the first mayor of White Sulphur Springs, and it’s called Hillcrest, and it sits above the village, and the first owner was the first mayor. He was also in the legislature, and behind his home was originally his farm. And now it is totally developed as a suburban area with many, many homes. But, yeah, it’s unique to think back to how it was when it was first starting.”

Behind the scenes, selecting homes for the tour is as personal as the event itself, often beginning with garden club members, neighbors, or friends who open their doors in the spirit of community service.

“Usually it is from the garden club members themselves or their friends who may want to open their homes. It’s an undertaking for the homeowner to prepare, to have hundreds of people go through your home. I think a lot of people do it as a community service because they know it is benefiting the beautification of our towns that they so enjoy themselves and they just want to be a part of that.”

Beyond the homes and gardens themselves, Katie encourages visitors to turn the day into a full Greenbrier Valley experience, especially with several companion events happening that same weekend, from an air and car show at the Greenbrier Valley Airport to a historical wedding exhibition hosted by the Greenbrier Historical Society.

More than anything, she emphasizes that the tour is built on volunteer energy and long-term care for community spaces.

“This is an effort held every two years by the garden clubs, but the planning goes on, you know, as soon as we finish one, then the planning begins for the next one, and it is very involved, but it’s all done by a group of volunteers, who love their communities, love flowers, and beautification efforts, just helping to make our communities better, and to let other people enjoy what we have here, what we’ve come to love ourselves.”

And that, in many ways, is what the tour continues to offer after 40 years: not just access to beautiful spaces, but a deeper understanding of the hands, history, and heart that keep the Greenbrier Valley blooming.