Verna Cook Garvan was a business woman, art collector, self-taught horticulturist, philanthropist, and founder of the Garvan Woodland Gardens in Hot Springs, Arkansas, a renowned botanical garden and one of Arkansas’s most popular tourist attractions.

Verna Cook Garvan, daughter of Essie Louise Bordis Cook and Arthur Bacillius Cook, was born on January 10, 1910 in Groveton, Texas. In 1916, Arthur B. Cook, a prominent entrepreneur in the lumber industry moved his family to Malvern, Arkansas, to become a general manager of the Wisconsin and Arkansas Lumber Company, which was one of the largest lumber companies in the South. Less than 10 years later, in 1925, Cook founded Malvern Brick and Tile Company which became one of the most prestigious businesses in Malvern during the mid-twentieth century. A.B. Cook’s prestige in the industry led to many distinguished memberships and board appointments including appointments to the Malvern’s Farmers and Merchants Bank Board and the Malvern School Board.

Verna Garvan grew up in Malvern, Arkansas and obtained her secondary school education at the prestigious Holton-Arms girls’ school in Washington, D.C. At a young age, Garvan became interested in her father’s business affairs. She accompanied him regularly to various meetings and eventually took an active part in the business decision-making. After her father’s death in a car accident in 1934, Garvan took over the management of the family’s assets. By this time, the business had been consolidated into a corporation named A.B. Cook Company. The Wisconsin and Arkansas Lumber Company manufactured wood flooring while the Malvern Brick and Tile was one of the largest brick-producing companies in the area.

In 1934, Verna Garvan married Alonzo B. Alexander,a United States Naval Academy graduate from Spartanburg, South Carolina. Garvan moved from Malvern, Arkansas to Spartanburg where the couple assumed the management of Garvan's family business operations. Their only son, Arthur Cook Alexander, born with cystic fibrosis, died in November 1954 at the age of 16 years. Two years later, Garvan’s first marriage ended in divorce.

Verna Garvan moved back to Arkansas, and on June 29, 1960, Verna married Francis Patrick Garvan, a graduate of Yale University and Georgetown University Law School and a son of a prominent family from New York City. The Garvans made Hot Springs their home and successfully managed the A.B. Cook Industries, the most notable being Malvern Brick and Tile Company, until Patrick Garvan’s untimely death in 1972. Verna Garvan was one of the first female CEO’s of a major southern manufacturing business. She retained Malvern Brick and Tile Company until selling it to Acme Brick in the late 1970s.

In 1985, Verna Garvan, a life-long, self-taught horticulturalist, generously bequeathed over 200 acres of land on Lake Hamilton, Garland County, Arkansas to the Fay Jones School of Architecture. Garvan spent over three decades developing this lake- front property as a botanical garden. Her philanthropy and her vision that emphasized conservation and landscape design in natural settings materialized into Garvan Woodland Gardens which attracts thousands of visitors from across the country every year and remains an invaluable resource for teaching and research in landscape architecture, botany, plant sciences and other disciplines.

Verna Cook Garvan died on October 1, 1993.