Walking down a path in Steamboat Springs past active soccer fields, or entering from the popular Core Trail, visitors enter a place of great beauty and sweet fragrances: the Yampa River Botanic Park, tucked in next to the Yampa River. Housing more than 60 gardens that were created by staff with the help of volunteers, the park is one of only eight botanic gardens in Colorado.

The Yampa River Botanic Park, begun in 1995, is the creation of Bob and Audrey Enever, originally from the United Kingdom. They succumbed to the Yampa Valley Curse, a famed spell that is said to overtake visitors and make them never want to leave Steamboat Springs. The Enevers examined the possibility of creating a public garden in Steamboat Springs.

When they moved to Steamboat Springs, they noticed there were no flower gardens. If the local ranchers grew anything, it was usually hay. “We grew up in a country where most people gardened,” Bob Enever said, “the men for vegetables and the women more for flowers, so it seemed to us that local people were missing a whole dimension of life.”

The Enevers’ son, Peter, died at age 31 from a heart attack, and they needed a way to channel their grief. The Enevers spent a winter collaborating with a landscape architect to develop ideas for the Yampa River Botanic Park. The implementation of the plan started three months later when they made a significant donation to fund the park in perpetuity.

Their vision for the park was as a place of serenity where local people who did not have the time or physical capacity to go out in the woods and up in the mountains could get some of the same experiences nearby.

The 6-acre park, dotted with sculptures, many as memorials, has the beautiful Peter’s Pond in the middle and is abutted by a large green that hosts a variety of special events and has attracted numerous volunteers and thousands of visitors.

One of those volunteers is Jeff Morehead, who watched from his next-door trailer as dump truck loads of dirt and rock were emptied on the flat hayfield. The Enevers were successful real estate managers and developers with deep connections to the construction industry, which had benefits when creating the park, Morehead said.

“The (Steamboat) mountain was undergoing tremendous growth and development,” he said, “and instead of hauling and dumping dirt out of town, Bob would say, ‘Bring it to me.’” More than 10,000 feet of dirt were brought in to create berms, gardens and winding paths.

“Back then trees were planted 5 to 6 feet apart. It was all sun,” Morehead said. “People said, ‘I don’t get it’. Now all the trees have filled in.”

Getting and developing the land wasn’t the only challenge for the fledgling garden. The park sits at 6,800 feet above sea level and enjoys only about 60 days a year without frost. And the high levels of ultraviolet light challenge even the most skilled horticulturalists.

Gayle Lehman served as the park’s chief’s horticulturalist before retiring recently. She oversaw installation and management of the park’s numerous mini-gardens, as well as plant conservation of native species like cut-leaved anemone, pasque flower, sugar bowls, seep monkeyflower, mountain ball cactus and rock spirea. The Yampa plant, Perideridia gairdneri, is on the threatened list.

The botanic park’s first executive director, Jennifer MacNeil, now oversees the staff, 50 volunteers, the gardens, fundraising and numerous community partnerships. Creating a place of serenity is a vital part of the park’s mission, she said. It should be a place where “you could walk through the gates and leave your worries behind and find a bench to sit on to appreciate the flowers.”

“This is such a place of hope,” said Sonia Franzel, the botanic park’s former board president and current vice president. She is from Argentina, where she lived next to a botanic garden. She was drawn to the Yampa River Botanic Park when she moved to Steamboat Springs. “We feel it’s a healing place.”

The Franzels lost a daughter 10 years ago. In her memory, they created Sascha’s Rock Garden. “Now our own friends and hers could go to her garden for a place of reflection. Giving back is such a wonderful way to heal.”

The park is filled with memorial gardens, benches and trees. Gifts of living plants and places of respite are popular ways to remember or honor someone.

It is also filled with adults and children who come to Yoga in the Park, the Strings Music Festival’s weekly Music on the Green, Stories in the Garden for children, free guided tours, An Evening with Master Gardeners, Fairy Garden House Contest, Lulie’s Wildflowers and Watercolors, Piknik Theatre and Stumpy Land for children, a new steamboat structure and children’s garden.

Landscape architect Cales Givens is designing new gates for the entrance to the park. When a new graduate, Givens also worked on gates for the White House.

Audrey Enever takes great pleasure in “meeting people who know me or who know my name saying how much they love the park.”

“Every time I go to the park, I see people enjoying it,” Bob said. “I see people, not necessarily aware of what they are enjoying, but enjoying serenity, the gardens, the place.”