Sewell was an actor and booking agent and he married the successful actress, Hetty Jane Dunaway, in 1916.

[7][8] There was a Honeymoon House where visitors could stay and the Blue Bonnet Tea Rooms served up meals.

[9] One local historian noted that television and improved roads, which enabled people to travel to Atlanta to eat and see shows, reduced the interest in Dunaway Gardens through the 1950s.

[10] A few years after Dunaway's death, the gardens closed and they deteriorated under an overgrowth of kudzu[10] and an outbreak of arson.

[11] It was purchased in 2000, restored and reopened in 2003[12] after the Bighams gradually uncovered the lost attractions of the former gardens, theaters and swimming pool.