A Visit To The Smith Memorial Garden in Oakwood

Smith Memorial Garden is a hidden Ohio treasure which, even here in the Dayton area, is unknown to many residents.  I’ll confess that I would never have known about it myself had an ex girlfriend who lived in Oakwood not taken me there about 20 years ago.  The approximately one acre garden property with it’s terracotta roof garden home was donated to the city of Oakwood when the owners Carlton and Jeanette Smith passed.  Now that the hottest part of Summer has passed, I decided to get up early and do some picture taking in the garden.

The property resides in the middle of a neighborhood in Oakwood, so there’s no separate parking – I just parked on the street near the gated entrance.

Here’s the brick walk way that greets you as you enter through the main gate:

I continued walking at taking photos:

The garden home:

I probably spent about an hour exploring the garden and getting different photos from different perspectives and lighting.

From there I decided to make my way to downtown Oakwood – it had been a while since I walked around Oakwood and I’ve never taken any photos in the area.  Two words best describe Oakwood – old money:

The downtown has charming shops on either side of Main St.:

I grabbed a quick bite to eat at Starbucks then headed down Main St. to Dayton’s only remaining Rolex authorized deal – James Free Jewelers:

Go back maybe 15 years, and there were two other Rolex AD’s in the area, both owned by the corporate entity Sterling:  Osterman and Jared.  Sterling lost their AD status with Rolex – rumored due to violating Rolex rules for ADs, which I believe to be true.  As a consumer, I always enjoyed a great relationship with Osterman.  They discounted Rolex sport models and I bought at least three Daytona models from Osterman.    But in recent years, I’ve purchased watches from James Free and now enjoy a good relationship with their store.

They also carry Rolex’s sister brand Tudor, and I got the opportunity to try on the new Black Bay “Monochrome”:

One of these days Tudor will start putting date displays on more of their models and I’ll strongly consider adding another to my collection.

All of these photos were taken with my new FujiFilm X100VI.  I must admit it was freeing to just have this light camera around my neck, and not having to schlep a camera backpack or sling bag around wherever I went.