PRESERVATION HEROES: BETTY AND ROBERT BALENTINE
LALH honors Betty and Robert Balentine, our 2017 Preservation Heroes, for their steadfast, generous philanthropic and intellectual commitment to excellence in landscape stewardship, design, and horticultural research. In 2002, the Balentines established the Southern Highlands Reserve at Lake Toxaway, North Carolina, with a mission of sustaining a rare ecosystem. Today a twenty-acre garden is surrounded by a hundred-acre natural woodland managed to maintain wildlife habitat and encourage ecological study.