LOCATION LOCATION
Arboretum Restaurant
Oswald Visitor Center
Garden Party
gardens, wetlands, woodlands and prairies, and attendees can meet in classrooms, auditoriums, galleries, on
terraces or amongst fauna.
The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum opens
its doors to groups of all shapes and sizes.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE MINNESOTA LANDSCAPE ARBORETUM
BY AMANDA FRETHEIM GATES
WHEN YOU ENTER THE GATES OF THE MINNESOTA
LANDSCAPE ARBORETUM IN CHASKA, a sense of
calm comes over you. Flowers bloom, trees grow tall,
grasses sway in the breeze. When you’re surrounded by
beauty in a relaxing environment, why wouldn’t you want
to meet here?
Established in 1958 by the University of Minnesota
College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource
Services, the Arboretum has grown into its own as not
only a research facility (with a 150-year fruit-breeding
history), but as a public space for education and gathering. Visitors can experience more than a 1,000 acres of
OLD-WORLD CHARM
In the early ’70s, as the Arboretum continued to grow
in size, it needed a visitor center. The Snyder Building
was designed by local architect Edwin Lundie to evoke
the feeling of a country manor or an upscale log cabin.
Over the following decades, the Arboretum’s needs outgrew the Snyder Building. In 2005 the attached Oswald
Visitor Center opened. But, the Snyder remains a warm
environment in which to hold events of various sizes.
“I sell the Snyder Building as a real private space,” says
Sylvia Matson, facility rental manager. “When you have
an evening event here, it’s like your own private estate.
You feel like you’ve stepped into a different time frame.
It really has an old-world feel.”
Using the Snyder’s private entrance, you walk into a
small lobby with wood beams across the ceiling and dark
wood floors. To the left is the Snyder Auditorium, a regal
room, with cathedral ceilings and wrought iron chande-
