Respite and relaxation in Burnsville
Founders and board members of The Garden At River Ridge include, from left, Chris Adam, Rosie Martin and Cheryl Owen. Photo by John Gessner
The Garden invites women who need a break or a shoulder
by John Gessner
Thisweek Newspapers
When Cheryl Owen was at her lowest, her sister, Chris Adam, asked her over.
When Owen arrived, Adam handed her a cup of chai tea latte and announced that her bath was ready.
Long baths are a favorite respite that were denied her by an emotionally abusive husband, said Owen, who settled into the bubbles surrounded by candlelight, soft music and flowers.
“I got there and cried and cried and cried,” said Owen, 51. “I thought, ‘This is what I want people to experience.’ She gave me such a gift.”
Providing respite for women is the mission of The Garden at River Ridge, a nonprofit opened in November by Owen, Adam and a handful of other women.
It’s a place where guests can take a book from the shelf, sip coffee or tea, talk with staff members or other guests, or close their eyes and be alone.
The Garden is comprised of four tastefully appointed rooms in the River Ridge IV building in Burnsville. Out back is a real garden, with a gazebo, for warmer months.
“I wanted to create a place where women could come to just rest, to be,” said Owen, of Elk River.
“We both kind of got the same nudge that there needed to be a place like this,” said Adam, 56, of Apple Valley.
Married for a third time in 2002, Owen was soon admitting to herself that she’d walked into yet another abusive relationship.
“This is the kind of thing that was happening to me,” she said, showing a photo of red swelling around her eyes, a physical symptom of her inner stress. “I was not being beaten, but the emotional abuse was off the charts.”
Soon after their marriage, Owen said, her husband was exerting control over her in strange and unsettling ways.
He’d convinced her to give up her job before they married, but soon was asking her why she didn’t work, Owen said.
He wouldn’t let her decorate the house, withheld money, contradicted things he’d said in previous conversations and left her feeling like she was “walking on eggshells.”
Her long baths became showers because her husband said his daughter would be upset if she used the tub, Owen said.
“I was using something that wasn’t meant for me,” she said.
Her big sister shared in Owen’s pain.
“The care that Chris gave to Cheryl was the inception of how this place was birthed,” said Rosie Martin, one of The Garden’s founders and board members and a member of Berean Baptist Church in Burnsville, which Adam also attends.
The idea of a women’s respite center was “something God had put on our hearts,” Adam said.
She found a small group of like-minded women to join the effort, some from her church. They spent a year meeting and planning, creating a vision statement, looking for a space to rent and rounding up furnishings and donations.
The space they chose is a former artist’s studio at River Ridge IV, an eclectic multitenant building north of Highway 13 and east of Interstate 35W that once housed the former Minnesota River School of Fine Art.
The Garden’s 1,600-square-foot space has high ceilings, wood floors and large windows with daylight-infused northern exposure.
There’s a reception area, a great room, a kitchen and a small “quiet room.” One of the donated furnishings is a harvest table made by the Rev. Roger Thompson, senior pastor at Berean Baptist.
“It’s been done on a shoestring,” said Martin, a Burnsville Realtor who lives in Elko.
A “trickle” of women have visited so far, Owen said. None have been women trapped in abusive relationships, Adam noted.
“That’s what’s interesting,” she said. “When our hearts conceived this idea, that’s what we were concentrating on. But with Rosie’s advice, too, we concentrated on all women.”
One regular guest stops in for breaks from caring for her husband, who has Parkinson’s disease and dementia.
“We’ve had women that come that have autistic kids and just need a break,” Adam said.
The Garden is up front about two things: It is not a counseling service, and it is a Christian enterprise.
Guests are asked to fill out a welcome card that asks whether they want someone to pray with them. Everyone is welcome, regardless of their response.
“Some check yes, some check no,” Adam said.
The founders’ goal is to install Owen in a full-time staff position, but for now their registered nonprofit is surviving uncertainly from month to month.
They hope to add classes and workshops on topics of interest to women and offer referrals for personal and professional services.
Meanwhile, the quiet room needs some nap-time furniture.
“We don’t have a chaise lounge yet,” Martin said. “That’s our big need.”
Drop-in hours are 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays and 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Fridays.
The Garden is in Suite 202 at 190 S. River Ridge Circle. The website is www.thegardenatriverridge.org.
John Gessner is at john.gessner@ecm-inc.com.
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