Regular Hours Annually April 1 through October 31
Tuesday through Saturday 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM
Thursdays 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM (June, July, August & September only)
Sunday Noon to 4:00 PM (Must enter by 3:00 PM).

Closed All Mondays, Memorial Day, and Independence Day. The gardens are closed from November 1st through March 31st.

There is an admission fee.

Schedel Garden was originally owned by Elmore’s “founding father,” Israel Harrington, but was never developed by him. The property ended up in the possession of Frederick Von Vultee, a local businessman who had a butcher/dry goods shop in town (in the building currently occupied by Attorney Kent Weiss). A nephew of the Von Vultee family, Frederick Steiffler, was occupying the home and land when Joe Schedel was a border there. Schedel took a 99-year lease on the house and land from Steiffler in the late 1920s and eventually purchased the land outright in 1969.

The original property was quite a bit larger before the Ohio Turnpike bisected the estate in 1955. This dramatic change, however, prompted the Schedels to create the Japanese garden in the floodplain and also construct the “Shack.” (The Schedel’s summer home is adjacent to the lakes in the lowland area of the grounds.)

Not only were the Schedels proficient in landscape and horticulture, but Joe Schedel was also an award-winning ornithologist… raising dozens of rare birds and waterfowl on the property… some of which had never been bred and reared in captivity before (the Australian Shell Duck is one example). Mrs. Schedel even had a couple of “pet” birds that were trained to “play ball” and would come to her like a cat or dog when called!

Upon the passing of Joe Schedel in 1981, Marie stopped actively maintaining the grounds, and between his passing and hers in 1989, the estate began to fall into a state of disrepair.

When Marie Schedel died in 1989, the Schedel Foundation took possession of the estate and started the task of returning this gem of northwestern Ohio to its current state; with the gates opening to the public in 1991.