Botany Woods welcomes its second generation

The old and the new mix quite nicely in Botany Woods, and its residents say they would not have it any other way.

The Greenville neighborhood is home to older couples and younger residents alike, with homes built in the 1950s and early 1960s that are hosting another generation of families. Their parents, aunts and uncles rode their bikes to the swimming pool on warm summer nights or played tag on the expansive front lawns.

"The young people are certainly coming back," said Mike Ashmore, 71, a Botany Woods resident for 37 years who raised his family there. "Frankly, several of them are children of people who live here. Kids want to get back where they grew up, which I think is just great. I think it's tremendous."

"We've enjoyed it because there's still a lot of older couples, retirees, in the neighborhood," said Paul Good, 33, who has lived in Greenville most of his life.

"And for the most part, they are great neighbors. They're sort of like a second parent to me and my children, and we've enjoyed them in the neighborhood. We've enjoyed watching the new, younger couples, families, move in to the neighborhood, as well, with their children."

Residents say Botany Woods offers quality homes on good-sized lots, convenience to restaurants and shopping on major thoroughfares such as Wade Hampton Boulevard and Haywood Road and the charm of a location that holds its value.

Downtown and the heart of the central business district are only about 10 minutes away, they say.

One of the neighborhood's anchors is Edwards Road Baptist Church, and there is a golf course nearby for recreation.

For Jane Callaway, a transplanted New Englander who has lived in Botany Woods for 33 years, "It's so nice to see the Botany Woods kids come back here. They do occasionally, three or four, but the big influx of 40-year-olds are Wade Hampton people, who went to Wade Hampton (high school). They lived around Botany Woods and they wanted to live in Botany Woods."

The neighborhood is a legacy of the late John Taylor, a prominent homebuilder.

"It just lucked out with John Taylor," Callaway said. "He didn't cut down all the trees. He left the curves in the land and the hills. It's made a big difference down the line. It really has."

But in the early days, employees who moved to town with companies such as Cryovac and General Electric "really started Botany Woods," she said.

"It was the Cryovac people who were on the board at the time and they saved the swimming pool," Callaway said. "They really did. They broke their neck but they went out and got it financed and this kind of stuff so that we have that swimming pool now, which we wouldn't have had."

She moved into the neighborhood with the wave of textile transplants who came from the Northeast, and recalls that "very few Southerners lived here. And the ones who did - this is when it first started out - were real old-time Southerners, been around for a long time. Now, it is almost all Southerners, which is kind of interesting."

Good and his wife, Carol Ann, who is from Florence, are Furman University graduates and have two children - a 4-year-old son and a 22-month-old daughter. Paul Good grew up across town in Dove Tree and works with his father in a small commercial real-estate development company.

"Some of the key points that I really enjoy about the neighborhood are it's an older neighborhood and the landscaping is mature," Good said of Botany Woods. "In the springtime, I love the azaleas that come out every year and make the neighborhood look really pretty. Another thing I really like about the neighborhood - the lots are a little bit larger than some of the newer neighborhoods that are being developed."

But it's the people who make the difference, Ashmore said.

"People are, for the most part, good neighbors," he said. "They look after each other. If we're out of town, somebody will always see about picking up the paper, mail. We'd do the same thing for the neighbors. We look out for each other, I think, pretty much all over the development."

The younger residents who have moved in include his daughter, Sally, her husband, Clark, and their children, Ashmore said. They are redoing an older home.