Every garden has a story: where the garden is located, what the architecture of the dwelling reveals about the times and place, and who the gardener was. Visiting the Jim Thompson Garden in Bangkok, Thailand, illustrates this thoroughly.
The garden is flush with orchids, hibiscus, bougainvilleas, gingers, ferns, and palms in a steamy and hot tropical climate. Passionflower, Jasmine, and Coral vines climb ever higher on whatever they can attach their tendrils to. The red lipstick palm (Cyrtostachys renda) nearly matches the house’s red paint. The plants grow continually and can easily overcome anything in their path. The rainy season keeps everything sparkling green. Gardening here is a project of holding the plants back from overtaking the house.
The house designed by Jim himself was a repurposing of six traditional Thai houses of the 1940s. Thai houses of the time were built of large Teakwood panels and assembled without nails. The new house is built on land adjacent to a canal or Klong, so the panels were transported by barge to the new location. The six houses became one, built on stilts to protect from flooding and prevent access from animals. The house was designed for entertaining and for showcasing Thompson’s objets d’art.
This brings me to the story of this particular gardener, Jim Thompson, the creator of it all. A son of an aristocratic family in Boston, MA, he had a privileged childhood traveling to Europe studying fine art, architecture, and gardens. After studying architecture at Princeton, he joined the US Army as an intelligence officer (a spy) who served during WWII, with his last posting in Thailand. Bangkok fascinated him, and upon leaving the army, he made Bangkok his home.
Discovering the arts and crafts of Thailand, Jim became fascinated with the silk weaver community directly across the canal from his new home. The weavers were primarily women working at home on separate parts of the 30-step process for harvesting, creating, and weaving silk.
He was so fascinated with the fabrics that he showed the silk to his friends in the fashion industry in New York and Hollywood. The fabric was so luxurious it created demand all over the world. During the 1950s & 60’s Jim became known as the Silk King of Thailand and is credited with saving the traditions of Thai silk.
He is credited with inventing the bright jewel tones and dramatic color combinations associated with Thai silk. The silk was used in the costumes of the Oscar award-winning musical “The King & I.” Today, his designs are still in demand.
During his life in Thailand, he loved to entertain guests, and his home was filled with his collection of fine art objects, which are still on display today.
On March 26, 1967, Thompson went for a walk in Malaysia’s Cameron Highlands and never returned. He was, at the time, the most famous American in Thailand, and his disappearance generated one of the most extensive land searches in Southeast Asian history. There was never a definitive answer to what happened to him, though theories of kidnapping, capture, and fatal injuries were suggested. Some say he may have been eaten by a tiger!
And it is experiences like this which convince me there is always something to discover in visiting gardens.