Background
The great-grandson of Elsie Reford, creator of the Gardens, he was instrumental in creating the not for profit organization that purchased them from the Quebec government in 1995.
The great-grandson of Elsie Reford, creator of the Gardens, he was instrumental in creating the not for profit organization that purchased them from the Quebec government in 1995.
Born in Ottawa, Canada, in 1962, he was raised and educated in the Outaouais region of Québec. He held the position of Dean of College at Saint Michael’s College at the University of Toronto from 1987 to 1995. He left to assume the directorship of Les Jardins de Métis (Reford Gardens), a cultural destination and tourist attraction located on the banks of the Saint Lawrence in Grand-Métis, Québec.
Under his stewardship, a complete restoration of the gardens and the historic buildings on the property has been undertaken.
The Gardens have also become a leader in nature conservation, undertaking the preservation of tracts of land along the Saint Lawrence River and creating an ecological park on the banks of the Metis River that opened in the summer of 2002. He is also president of the Association touristique régionale de la Gaspésie.
He is involved in various organizations involved in gardens, tourism, historic preservation and culture and is an active volunteer in Quebec’s Lower Saint Lawrence/Gaspésie region where he lives.
He was one of the “Top Forty Under Forty” in 2000. He has also been given various honours for his contribution to landscape architecture and gardens. He was made an honorary member of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects. In 2009, he was awarded the Frederick-Todd Prize by the Association des Architectes Paysagistes du Québec. In the same year, the Montréal Botanical Garden bestowed the Henry-Teuscher Prize on Alexander Reford and Elsie Reford (posthumous) for their contribution to horticulture in Québec.
Alexander Reford is a member of the board of directors of the Canadian Tourism Commission where he serves as the representative of the small and medium-sized enterprises from Quebec.
