Farrand,Beatrix (1872-1959) Career = Commentary Beatrix Jones Farrand Collection, 1866-1959 Page 1 of 1 Beatrix Jones Farrand Collection, 1866-1959 OAC Brought to you by the Online Archive of California (OAC), an initiative of the California Digital Library http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf558004cz Descriptive Summary Collection Title: Beatrix Jones Farrand Collection, 1866-1959 Collection Number: 1955-2 Creator: Farrand, Beatrix Jones, 1872-1959 Extent: 16 cartons, 22 boxes, 1 half box, 6 flat boxes, 5 card file boxes, 20 flat file drawers Repository: Environmental Design Archives. University of California, Berkeley. Berkeley, California. Abstract: The collection consist of personal and professional papers, records of Farrand's work as a landscape architect, and records relating to the Reef Point Library. Language: English. Comments? Questions? I Copyright Statement & Conditions of Use CDL The Online Archive of California (OAC) is an initiative of the California Digital Library © 2006 by The Regents of The University of California http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=tf558004cz&query=dorr&submit.x=13&submit.y=15 8/18/2008 Farrand, Beatrix, 1872-1959. Papers of Beatrix Jones Farrand, 1938-1953 A Finding Aid Page 1 of 6 IV A-4 BJF Farrand, Beatrix, 1872-1959. Papers of Beatrix Jones Farrand, 1938-1953 (inclusive): A Finding Aid. Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Plain Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 © 1999 The President and Fellows of Harvard College Descriptive Summary Repository: Arnold Arboretum Archives of Harvard University, Jamaica Plain. Call No.: IV A-4 BJF. Creator: Beatrix Jones Farrand, 1872-1959. Title: Papers of Beatrix Jones Farrand, 1938-1953 (inclusive). Quantity: 1 Box. Abstract: The Beatrix Farrand papers include biographical material, obituaries, correspondence (1938-1953) and some published works, which were mainly acquired during the years of her employment as a landscape garden consultant (1946-1950) at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, Jamaica Plain, MA. Administrative Information Processing Information: Processed: June 1999. Acquisition Information: Provenance: The majority of the Beatrix Farrand papers were acquired during her tenure as consultant to the Arnold Arboretum from ca 1946-1950 and later accessioned into HOLLIS #BNV9277. The biographical materials were added by library staff. This file # is ajp00006. Access Restrictions: Researchers seeking to examine archival materials are strongly encouraged to make an appointment. The Director, or an office of origin, may place restrictions on the use of some or all of its records. The extent and length of the restriction will be determined by the Director, office of origin, and the Archivist and will be enforced equally for all researchers. http://oasis.harvard.edu/html/ajp00006.html 7/20/2004 Farrand, Beatrix, 1872-1959. Papers of Beatrix Jones Farrand, 1938-1953 A Finding Aid Page 2 of 6 Use Restrictions: The copyright is held by The President and Fellows of Harvard College for the Arnold Arboretum Archives of Harvard University. The copyright on some materials in the collection may be held by the original author or the author's heirs or assigns. Researchers are responsible for obtaining written permission from the holder (s) of copyright and the Arnold Arboretum Archives prior to publishing any quotations or images from materials in this collection. Photocopies may be made at the discretion of the Arnold Arboretum Archives staff. Permission to make photocopies does not constitute permission to reproduce or publish materials outside the bounds of the fair use guidelines. Historical Note Beatrix Jones Farrand (1872-1959) was one of the most important American landscape architects of the twentieth century. She has the distinction of being the only woman check among the eleven founding members of the American Society of Landscape Architects. Farrand trained with private teachers before setting up a practice in New York City in 1895. Her principal teacher wasCharles Sprague Sargent, the first director of the Arnold Arboretum. Under Sargent's tutelage, she studied plant identification and planting design on the Arboretum grounds and had use of Sargent's comprehensive library, then housed at Holm Lea, his estate in Brookline, Massachusetts. Farrand served as a consulting landscape gardener to the Arnold Arboretum from 1946 to about 1950. She produced several designs for the Arboretum grounds during her years of professional practice, including major renovations of Bussey Hill and Peters Hill, and planting beds along the entrance drive. Her views on landscape changes at the Arboretum are described in an article she wrote for Arnoldia (November 1, 1946). Farrand was born into a distinguished New York family that included her aunt, the writer Edith Wharton. Her early years included extensive European travel, experiences she drew upon in her later professional life. She married Max Farrand, the distinguished Yale historian in 1913. Farrand specialized in private gardens and estates. Her best known and most widely admired design is for the garden of Dumbarton Oaks the Washington D.C. estate of Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss, now a museum and study center affiliated with Harvard University. Another well preserved Farrand design is The Eyrie, the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller garden in Seal Harbor Maine. She also did extensive college and university campus designs including work at Yale University, Vassar, and the University of Chicago. Her extensive experimental gardens at Reef Point, her summer home in Bar Harbor, Maine, are unfortunately lost. Farrand's papers and private library are now in the Library of the College of Environmental Design at the University of California at Berkeley. Scope and Content http://oasis.harvard.edu/html/ajp00006.html 7/20/2004 Farrand, Beatrix, 1872-1959. Papers of Beatrix Jones Farrand, 1938-1953 A Finding Aid Page 3 of 6 The Beatrix Farrand papers include correspondence (1938-1953) primarily to Arboretum administrators Paul C. Mangelsdorf, E. D. Merrill, Karl Sax, and horticulturist Donald Wyman during and after her years as consultant landscape gardener to the Arboretum. Farrand was the first who consulted on a wide array of projects at the Arboretum from replanting hemlocks on Hemlock Hill to the rejuvenation of boundary plantings. Also a moving force behind the establishment of the "Friends of the Arnold Arboretum," Farrand herself was a generous contributor to the institution. Included in the correspondence are plant lists for the administration building and various locations in the Arboretum garden. Some publications written by Farrand are included from Arnoldia, Reef Point Gardens Bulletin, and the Bulletin of Popular Information. A general file folder is also included with some biographical material and obituaries. The collection is organized into the following series: I. Biographical Material; II. Correspondence; III. Publications; IV. Photographs. Container List Series: I Biographical Material Folder 1 "Lady into Landscape Gardener: Beatrix Farrand's Early years at the Arnold Arboretum." by Jane Brown. Arnoldia Vol. 51 No.3 1991. "Lady as Landscape Gardener: Beatrix Farrand at The Arnold Arboretum, Part 2." by Jane Brown. Arnoldia Vol. 52 No. 1992. Folder 2 Beatrix Jones Farrand 1872-1959: An Appreciation of a Great Landscape Gardner. Content includes: "Beatrix Cadwalader Jones" by Robert W. Patterson; "An Attempted Evocation of a Personality" by Mildred Bliss; "Dumbarton Oaks-A Great American Garden" by Lanning Roper; "A List of Beatrix Jones' Work." Folder 3 Beatrix Farrand 1872-1959. Reef Point Gardens Bulletin vol. 1 No. 17. "This is the last Reef Point Bulletin. It was written by Mrs. Farrand in 1956 three check years before her death." Beatrix Jones' Diary, Photocopy of three pages concerning visit to Arnold Arboretum. Transcription of Passage by Ida Hay 1991. (See Brown, Jane. Arnoldia Vol. 51, No.3 p.7 for full transcription). Folder 4 "Miss Beatrix Jones of New York " [1896?]. "Miss Beatrix Jones' Vocation." Oct. 31, 1897. The Sun. See additional biographical works: Balmori, Diana. Beatrix Farrand's American Landscapes: Her Gardens and Campuses; Brown, Jane. Beatrix: The Gardening http://oasis.harvard.edu/html/ajp00006.html 7/20/2004 FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED & SIX PRINCIPLES OF LANDSCAPE DESIGN SCENERY-Design "passages of scenery" and a liberal use of plantings, even in the smallest spaces and in areas with the most active use. SUITABILITY--Creation of designs that are in keeping with the natural scenery and topography; respect for, and full utilization of, the "genius of the place." SANITATION--Provision for adequate drainage and similar engineering considerations; creation of designs to promote both physical and mental health of users. SUBORDINATION--Subordination of all details, all features, both of natural and artificial materials, to the overall design, and the effect intended for it to achieve. SEPARATION--Separation of areas done in different styles SO that "incongruous mixture of styles" will not dilute the intended effect of each; separation of ways in order to insure safety of use and reduce distractions for those using the space; separation of uses that conflict with one another. SPACIOUSNESS--Creation of designs that make the area seem larger than it is: bays and headlands of plantings, indefinite boundaries. See Linda 7 llc Clelland 11 Presenting varue. ch 2, Ouger of 4 Desky Ethic for N.P. 1993. Pront - Online LateLines 2010) of the book's appeal but also of rent control and stabiliza- did not want to be associated The Collected Writings of lection of archival and edu- to her standards. In addition, a sign of the intellectual tion in New York, or how we with the embourgeoisement Beatrix Farrand: American cational materials to be used she decided to donate her imprecision of her approach. would get from where we are of my neighborhood, even Landscape Gardener, by students of landscape professional papers, consist- At times the author's lament to where she would like us to though I knew I was a part of 1872-1959 design at Reef Point, and ing primarily of plans and for a time when local com- be. it. My disingenuous boycott Edited by Carmen Pearson published bulletins on the photographs, to the Univer- munities organized "against Moreover, is it also possi- ended when I gave in to the University Press of New organization's projects and sity of California at Berkeley. wealth and power" instead ble that the city is more convenience of picking up a England, 2009 development. For many years these of for the right to a well- resilient, more complicated, bottle of wine not twenty Unfortunately Bar archives were stored off-site frothed cappuccino is acer- than Zukin allows? It con- yards from my home, and Beatrix Farrand: Private Harbor's tax base was severe- and were difficult of access, bic and to the point. But at stantly regenerates new over the course of a year I Gardens, Public Landscapes ly eroded, first by the Great discouraging most scholars; other moments Zukin seems social spaces of authentic, came to the know the owner By Judith B. Tankard Depression and then by a with little new research, simply nostalgic not for a hybrid communities, even if of the store, her dog, and The Monacelli Press, 2009 disastrous fire in 1947, which Farrand's formerly stellar better New York, but for her they evade prying eyes. A several other regulars. One destroyed the homes of reputation went into a par- New York, the city she discov- walk today from Greenwich of these, a local artist, con- Unlike many of tial eclipse. In ered and made her own. Village to Wall Street - or tributed a large, whimsical her contempo- the early Anyone who remembers the from Astoria to Jackson chalk mural across the shop's raries, Beatrix 1980s, howev- vitality and variety of Harlem Heights - still takes you back wall. On Friday Jones Farrand Beatus Dassand er, papers twenty or thirty years ago through a number of ethnic evenings, the shop hosted (1872-1959), now presented in longs for a more complicat- enclaves and a tremendously wine tastings. Local distribu- considered one two Farrand ed telling of this story. mixed set of communities. tors uncorked bottle after of the foremost symposia The author would be Even within the most bottle, carefully explaining landscape were pub- more convincing if she had upscale environments there the provenance of each, designers of her lished, usher- spent a little time acknowl- remain informal and con- while an affable employee generation, ing in a edging not only the benefits tested spaces. Nevertheless refilled platters of high- never wrote a revival of that come with gentrifica- Zukin is underscoring a cen- grade cheeses and thinly book. As archi- scholarship tion - neighborhood safety, tral and brutal urban para- sliced prosciutto. I shared tect/landscape on this lead- rehabilitated housing stock dox. Gentrifiers are people knowing looks with a few architect Robert ing American but also the difficulty of who love cities for their other familiar strangers from W. Patterson, landscape controlling it; many govern- diversity. And yet their the neighborhood as we her friend and frequent col- many of the town's wealthy designer, research that was ment interventions in urban arrival triggers a process observed the Friday night laborator of her later years, summer residents. As a also fuelled by a growing planning and growth are whereby the older, poorer crowd. These urban explor- observed in his obituary trib- result, Reef Point Gardens interest in the lives and later judged as failures. groups that produced neigh- ers were visiting to see what ute, "She wrote less SO that was denied tax-exempt sta- careers of women profes- Zukin suggests "new forms borhood authenticity are Greenpoint was "all about" she could do more." Instead tus. Recognizing that the sionals. of public-private stewardship forced to leave. and lap up its "authentic" she chose a different way to foundation now had little The recent collection of that give residents, workers, It's hard to see your charms. Although a recent make a permanent contribu- chance for survival, Farrand Farrand writings edited by and small business owners, neighborhood change before arrival myself, I still regard- tion to her profession. In chose to dissolve it. She also Carmen Pearson follows a as well as buildings and dis- your eyes and easy to resent ed these people as tourists 1939 Farrand and her hus- made the radical decision to volume published in 1997 by tricts, a right to put down newcomers and media out- who could not appreciate the band, Max, formed the Reef destroy the house at Reef the Island Foundation in Bar roots and remain in place," lets for overexposing the lit- gritty quirks of the place I Point Gardens Corporation: Point and its gardens, realiz- Harbor, in which the Reef but says next to nothing tle place you discovered on called home. Sharon Zukin a horticultural study center ing that later owners would Point Gardens Bulletins were about the present landscape your own. We want the gate would understand exactly at her family home in Bar be unlikely to maintain them reprinted in facsimile with to come down just after our how I felt. Elihu Rubin Harbor, on Mount Desert an introduction by Paula own arrival, to preserve what Island, in Maine. Farrand Deitz. Farrand had published we found before it is also assembled a large col- destroyed. When the wine shop appeared, my first reac- tion was juvenile: boycott. I 19 the original Bulletins, which Teaching, which appeared in With characteristic verbal client, Mildred Bliss of Days and enthusiasm for all tant to remember that the included articles written by 1910. Here she somewhat economy, she summed up Dumbarton Oaks in Wash- things environmental, open purpose of her gift was to her as well as by several of sternly lays out a demanding her nearly sixty-year career ington, DC. Bliss, who had space, especially "green" aid aspiring landscape archi- her associates at Reef Point, course of study for aspiring in less than three printed been very close to Farrand, open space, was hailed uni- tects in their own design at irregular intervals between women landscape designers. pages, mentioning by name recalled her profound sensi- versally as a blessing. At first studies. Almost certainly 1946 and 1955. Although This immediately raises the only a few of her more than tivity to music, her fine there was little awareness Farrand would be astonished there is an overlap of five question: where had she her- two hundred clients. She voice, and her ultimate deci- that this precious space, if she knew that historians essays, Farrand afficionados self learned these skills, and listed her honors, revealing sion to become a landscape rather than simply being were now using the collec- will want both the Deitz and who were her teachers? that in 1899, only three years gardener rather than a "leftover" land, had some- tion to study her own life Pearson volumes in their Farrand never took formal into her profession, she had singer. She also described times been designed by and career. libraries. courses of any kind but felt unworthy of being Farrand's perfectionism, her human beings. Then came Contrary to Farrand's An especially valuable fea- received all of her education, named a charter member of almost obsessive attention the realization that Central wishes, however, her books ture of the Pearson collec- from the elementary level the American Society of to detail, and her insistence Park in New York City and and prints and Jay's glass tion is its inclusion of the on, from tutors. We know Landscape Architects. A life- on working with her clients many of the nation's other slides (the latter copied onto full text of the neophyte that Charles Sprague long Episcopalian, Farrand as codesigners rather than urban parks had been 35mm) were not kept togeth- landscape designer's 1893- Sargent, director of the ended her brief memoir with as passive recipients of her designed by Frederick Law er but were instead absorbed 1895 "Book of Gardening," Arnold Arboretum, provided a phrase from the Roman own ideas. The following Olmsted Sr. This was the into the library of Berkeley's which has never before been instructors for her in plant Catholic requiem mass: "Lux year Bliss gathered together dawn of the "Olmsted College of Environmental published. This was a hand- identification and horticul- perpetua luceat eis," append- Patterson's article, her own Renaissance," a welcome Design. Unfortunately public written diary the author ture from the ranks of his ing to it only the word appreciation, an article by development but one with a universities are chronically kept while visiting Europe staff. Her tutors in civil engi- "FINIS." Lanning Roper on Dumbar- shadowy underside: parks underfunded and specialized with her mother; the title, neering, a key component of Five months after her ton Oaks, and a list of were "good" because they archival collections are rarely her own, seems a misnomer, landscape design, were death from heart disease on Farrand's work and had the were not only open to the a priority. Because the Jekyll, since Beatrix was not then recruited from Columbia February 27, 1959, two per- compilation privately print- public but belonged to the Farrand, and Jay plans, along gardening or giving advice University, but here again we ceptive and affectionate rem- ed, using the same title as public. By contrast, private with the library's impressive on gardening herself. A close have no names. For these iniscences of Farrand were that of Patterson's article. gardens were seen as elitist holdings of California comparison with Charles reasons and many others, a published in Landscape Archi- Almost a quarter of a century because they belonged to architectural drawings, had Platt's book on Italian gar- Farrand study of the scope tecture Quarterly. The first, would pass before compara- individuals - wealthy indi- no full-time curator until dens (1894) and with Italian and caliber of Judith written by Patterson, was ble attention was again viduals. recently, they were not readi- Villas and Their Gardens Tankard's book has been called "Beatrix Farrand, 1872- focused on Farrand's life and Interest in Farrand lay ly accessible to historians. (1905) by Edith Wharton, needed for a long time. 1959: An Appreciation of a career. dormant during this period, In fact, few people knew they Farrand's aunt, could at Farrand was her own first Great Landscape Gardener." In the 1960s and well into although her professional were there. some point be revealing biographer. In 1956, at the Patterson's article is invalu- the 1970s, the cultural cli- library, plans, photographs, In the 1970s, however, a since they visited many of age of 84, she wrote a third- able because, of the many mate in America was inimi- herbarium, and print collec- renewed interest in historic the same places. person narrative of her life people who worked closely cal to renewed appreciation tion were safely stored at private gardens arose, and Another interesting item that was published after her with Farrand, either in her of Farrand or, indeed, any Berkeley, along with the modern scholarly investiga- included in Pearson's book is death in the last issue of the office or as a consultant, he landscape designer who spe- plans of Gertrude Jekyll that tion of Farrand was an article Farrand wrote Reef Point Gardens Bulletin. was the only one who has cialized in private gardens. she had purchased and the launched, appropriately by a on landscape gardening for described her working habits Instead, in the era of Earth plans, photographs, press- a book entitled Vocations in detail. clipping albums, and slides for the Trained Woman: The second article, "An left to her for Reef Point by Opportunities Other Than Attempted Evocation of a her contemporary Mary Personality," was written by Rutherfurd Jay. It is impor- Farrand's most important 20 Berkeley student. In 1976, these shores. For more than Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, late 1940S. It had been stand- women's nervous disorders story "The Yellow Wallpaper" Marlene Salon wrote her a decade, a new book on which she worked on ing empty for over 20 years and who was the brother-in- (1892). Farrand, of course, MLA thesis on Farrand, Farrand has been badly between 1900 and 1916.1 The and the gardens had long law of John Lambert not only recovered fully but which she followed a year needed, both to give a more main feature of Crosswicks since vanished. Cadwalader, her mother's also developed the hardy later with an article in complete picture of the was a large walled garden Although Farrand was first cousin and the most physique that she deemed Landscape Architecture enti- landscape architect and as a with a central rose panel related to Clement Newbold significant male presence in essential for women land- tled "Beatrix Jones Farrand: scholarly corrective to the divided into two dozen beds, through her paternal grand- Farrand's life before her scape gardeners. Gilt-Edged Gardens." In 1980 Brown book. Judith Tankard flanked by perennial gardens mother, she developed a par- marriage; her father had In 1914 Farrand designed Eleanor M. McPeck pub- has bravely taken on the task. and surrounded by a multi- ticularly close relationship abandoned his family when a charming enclosed garden lished an article on Farrand Rigorous scholarly study plicity of shrubs and vines. with his wife, Mary. Over she was in her teens. at Bellefield, the Newbold in the fourth volume of of Farrand is not an easy Tankard discusses Cross- the course of the Crosswicks Mitchell was also a summer house in Hyde Park, New Notable American Women Vol. undertaking, but Tankard is wicks well and illustrates it project, they discovered resident of Bar Harbor, and York, for Thomas Newbold IV (Harvard University Press) well suited to the job. The with three stunning water- many common interests: it is obvious from an article (1886-1939), a New York state and Diane K. McGuire edit- author of six previous books, color renderings - a plan, both, for example, were in the Pearson collection senator and a distant cousin ed and published Beatrix including monographs on a perspective, and a sheet of singers, and in Farrand's that Farrand not only knew of Clement Newbold.5 She Farrand's Plant Book for Dum- Jekyll and on Farrand's wall elevations as well words, "we grew to love each him but was fond of him. laid out this garden, which barton Oaks (Dumbarton American contemporary as two 1910 photographs. It other as well as two women His draconian treatment of was located directly off the Oaks), and in 1985 Sagapress Ellen Biddle Shipman, her is fortunate that the visual can."3 In 1905, a few months "nervous" women (and, more dining room, in three sec- published another com- research is exhaustive and record is good - there are after having her third child, rarely, men), which included tions of diminishing width, pendium of essays, Beatrix her writing is clear and illu- numerous additional pho- Clement Jr., Mary Newbold a ban on nearly all activity, creating a false perspective Farrand's American Land- minating. She has thorough- tographs at Berkeley - since died unexpectedly, leaving whether practical or intellec- that made the garden as scapes: Her Gardens and ly traced Farrand's career, the 75-room, Georgian- Farrand in a state of nervous tual, is described in a whole appear longer than Campuses, with contributions discussing all of her most revival house at Crosswicks, collapse that lasted for four Charlotte Perkins Gilman's it actually was. The section by McPeck, McGuire, and important projects, and her an early Guy Lowell commis- months, three of them spent chilling autobiographical nearest the house was sur- Diana Balmori. In the same book is fully illustrated with sion, burned down in the in bed.4 The bed rest may rounded by a stone wall and year, a major symposium on plans and period, black-and- have been prescribed by Silas the other two were enclosed Farrand, the first fitting trib- white illustrations. There are Weir Mitchell, a Philadelphia by hemlock hedges. ute to her in many years, was also contemporary color doctor who specialized in held at Dumbarton Oaks; its views, some by leading archi- proceedings, with essays by tectural and landscape pho- leading scholars, were pub- tographer Richard Cheek. An 1 There has been much confu- Crosswicks, until 1897, the same 3 (Beatrix Jones), undated auto- 4 The exact date of Clement B. lished in 1982 (Dumbarton appendix in the form of a sion about the starting date of year that he married Mary graph letter, Reef Point Gardens Newbold, Jr.'s birth (January 17, Oaks). gazetteer lists Farrand's com- the Crosswicks project. In the Dickinson Scott. Farrand's first Collection, College of Environ- 1905) is given in Rash's Surname Interest in Farrand and missions. list of Farrand commissions at design project was actually mental Design Archives, Univer- Index (www.pennock.ws/ the back of the Sagapress book, Chiltern, the Edgar Scott prop- her accomplishments has Perhaps the most remark- sity of California, Berkeley. surnames/fam/fam42434.html). its inclusive dates are given erty in Bar Harbor, which she continued to grow. In 1995 able of Farrand's early com- Although there is no salutation, His mother Mary Scott Newbold as 1891-1916. The compiler of began in 1896. She selected the this letter must have been writ- Viking published a mono- missions was Crosswicks, died on May 2, 1905 after an the list would have known site with the architect Alexander ten to Max Farrand, because she appendectomy (obituary note, graph by British garden the Mr. and Mrs. Clement that the Berkeley file for Wadsworth Longfellow and refers to herself as "your 'girl'." New York Times, May 3, 1905, p. 9. writer Jane Brown entitled B. Newbold property in Crosswicks included an engi- worked on it intermittently for The date is probably spring Beatrix: The Gardening Life of neering drawing labeled years. Scott was the brother of or summer of 1913 (not 1911, as 5 Limited biographical informa- Beatrix Jones Farrand, a work "Profiles of Proposed Drive," Mary Scott Newbold. Tankard indicates), as the tion on Thomas Jefferson marred by sweeping asser- dated November 11, 1891, which Farrands only met about a year Newbold may be found tions with little basis in fact is not by Farrand. Yet Clement 2 www.commentarymagazine. before their marriage, which at www.familysearch.org/eng/ and inadequate research on B. Newbold did not buy the com/viewarticle.cfm/the-battle took place on December 17, 1913. default.asp. ninety-acre Satterthwaite farm, of-abington-township. In this letter, Beatrix describes which he developed into twelve of her early projects, all begun by the probable date of this letter, and seems to be planning a tour of her gardens for Max. 21 Bellefield directly abuts planting plans among the set exhibition-quality render- plans for either place were side North America during Into Art, also published by Springwood, now The Home from Berkeley, and surviving ings, but we do not know the ever implemented in her the first eleven years of the Monacelli Press (2001). of Franklin D. Roosevelt family photographs were too artists' names. Similarly, the lifetime. project. Anticipating their Today, we are in the midst National Historic Site, and recent to be relied upon as draftspeople in her office, Tankard's book includes a spring and summer stays in of what might almost be the narrow end of the gar- evidence of Farrand's origi- unlike those in the Olmsted chapter on Farrand's college this country and Bliss's even- called a Farrand renaissance. den comes right up against nal choices. The Garden firm, did not initial the plans landscapes, building on the tual retirement from his Under the leadership of the property line. Luckily, Association decided to they prepared, although we solid foundation offered by diplomatic career, they Patrick Chassé, the Beatrix the Newbold and Roosevelt replant the Bellefield garden know the names of some of Diana Balmori in an essay in bought a somewhat rundown Farrand Society has been families were friends, and with the same plant materi- her later assistants. the Sagapress book. Tankard property in the Georgetown formed, adopting once again a Newbold daughter played als that Farrand had used in Dorothy Straight was also ably discusses Farrand's section of Washington in some of the goals of the Reef as a child with the future a garden further down the another client with whom numerous gardens on 1921 and proceeded to totally Point Gardens Corporation president. Hudson in Garrison, New Farrand developed a close Mount Desert Island, devot- reshape it over the next sev- that were abandoned SO In 1975, Bellefield was York. While this is a ques- friendship. After Willard ing a chapter to The Eyrie, eral years. In 1940 they many years before. A number purchased by the National tionable preservation prac- Straight died in the flu pan- the John D. Jr. and Abigail donated the house, its collec- of Farrand's projects have Park Service to serve as tice, the garden today looks demic of 1918, Dorothy Rockefeller garden in Seal tions of Byzantine and pre- been restored, including her administrative headquarters splendid, as can be seen in married a Yorkshireman, Harbor, which she worked Columbian art, and its final Bar Harbor home, for the Roosevelt and the color photographs cho- Leonard K. Elmhirst, moved on for almost a quarter formal gardens (sixteen-plus Garland Farm. Vanderbilt National Historic sen by with him to England, and of a century (1926-1950) and acres) to Harvard University, 2009 also saw the publica- Sites. Park Service historians one taken from a third-floor developed the grounds of which is extant and occa- and its naturalistic garden tion of two books (both studied the house, part of window. Dartington Hall in Devon, sionally open to the public. (twenty-seven acres) to the reviewed in the last issue of which goes back to the late One of Farrand's most again with Farrand's help. Farrand's last garden, National Park Service. Site/Lines) that helped place 1790s, but were unaware that distinguished midcareer The Straight garden in Old her own Garland Farm in As the letters between Farrand in the context of the garden was historically projects, undertaken at about Westbury was subdivided in Bar Harbor (1955-1959) a Farrand and Mildred Bliss in other women landscape gar- significant. Its plantings the same period as Belle- 1951, but Dartington Hall diminutive space compared the archives of Dumbarton deners/architects. These declined, and by 1991, when I field, was Elmhurst (later survives. with The Eyrie and most Oaks reveal, the women were Thaisa Way's Unbounded first saw the Bellefield gar- called Apple Green) in Old Two other major Farrand of Farrand's other gardens became intimate friends. Practice: Women and den, little was left except Westbury, on Long Island. gardens that have recently is discussed in Tankard's Bliss, the more extraverted Landscape Architecture in the towering hemlock hedges Farrand designed the garden been restored are the rose final chapter. of the two, was probably Early Twentieth Century and a few straggling peonies for Mrs. Willard D. Straight garden at the New York Dumbarton Oaks in responsible, at least initially, (University of Virginia Press) in the planting beds. A few (Dorothy Payne Whitney) Botanical Garden (1915-1916) Washington, D.C., perhaps for the informal tone of and my Long Island years later, it was discovered between 1914 and 1932; the and the garden at the the best loved and most vis- the correspondence, which Landscapes and the Women by a local garden club and by house had recently been Hill-Stead in Farmington, ited of Farrand's gardens, their husbands were drawn Who Designed Them (W. Katherine H. Kerin, a gradu- remodeled by Delano & Connecticut, which she is the subject of one of into through affectionate Norton). It appears to have ate student in landscape Aldrich. The most striking designed for Theodate Pope Tankard's best chapters. The exchanges between "MilRob" been a fortuitous coinci- architecture from Cornell, feature of the landscape was Riddle about 1920. In both history of the Dumbarton and "MaxTrix." Although dence that these, as well as who made it the subject a Chinese garden that gardens, Farrand's intended Oaks landscape is also the Tankard cites this corre- the Tankard monograph and of her master's thesis. The reflected the Straights' plantings have been story of one of the most spondence, she rarely quotes the Pearson collection, all Beatrix Farrand Garden extended honeymoon in that installed, although there is complete collaborations it, apparently feeling that it appeared during the fiftieth Association was formed and country and their continuing no evidence, photographic or between landscape designer is adequately dealt with in anniversary of Farrand's undertook the restoration interest in its culture. Tank- otherwise, that her planting and client in the known Susan Tamulevich's death. of the Bellefield garden. ard includes a watercolor tory of the profession - this Dumbarton Oaks: Landscape May eternal light contin- Unfortunately, there were no plan and perspective of the in spite of the fact that the ue to shine on the memory garden. Farrand would have clients, Mildred and Robert of one of America's finest contracted with professional Woods Bliss, were living out- landscape designers! delineators to produce these Cynthia Zaitzevsky 22 Downing, Andrew Jackson, born in 1815-52 Am American nurseryman, landscape gardener, and pomologist, born at Newburgh, N.Y. His influence upon American horticultural development is probably unsurpassed. To him must be accredited the introduction and development of the free or English school of landscape gardening in America. He planned the grounds about the National Capitol, the White House, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. To his foresight and to his spirit as communicated to others, we owe our present American system of broad free municipal parks. Downing's monumental work, Fruits and Fruit Trees of America 91845) greatly extended by his brother, Charles, together with his mumerous essays, form the buok of his contribution to the literature of horticulture. Another important work is the Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1841). Those essays were first published in the Horticulturist, of which hewas editor at the time of his death, and afterwards in book form under the title of Rural Essays (1854) for which book George William Curtis wrote a memoir of Downing. Hewas drowned while attemptin to save the lives of others on the burning Hudson River Steamer Henry Clay. Design Notebook Paula Deitz New York Times (1857-Current file); Aug 28, 1980; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times pg. C10 Design Notebook Blocked due to copyright. See full page image or Paula Deitz microfilm. lectures, on which much of this article is based, will be published in the fall. In landscape But for the symposium itself. Beatrix Farrand's 1941 Plant Book for Dum- barton Oaks. published by Dumbar ton Oaks, and illustrated with vintage architecture, and contemporary photographs, has been issued in hardcover ($20) and paperback ($10) and may be ordered women have directly from Dumbarton Oaks (1703 32d Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20007). been leaders. Another landscape architect, Ellen Biddle Shipman, told a reporter in 1938: "Until women took up landscap- ing, gardening in this country was at its lowest ebb. The renaissance was due largely to the fact that women, instead of working over their boards, used URING the 1920's and 30's, D some women who were land- plants as if they were painting pictures scape architects attained a and as an artist would. Today women kind of celebrity status as are the top of the profession. they traveled around the country de- They knew their engineering as well as their plants. and as was evident in signing estate gardens and public projects. One of them, Beatrix Jones Blocked due to copyright. Mrs. Shipman's design for the seven- mile lakeshore boulevard in Grosse Farrand, was the only woman among See full page image or the 11 founding members of the Ameri- Pointe, Mich. which featured a combi- can Society of Landscape Architects in microfilm. nation of flowering trees, willows and 1899. evergreens to vary the colors and Mrs. Farrand, a native of New York shades of green according to season City, designed 110 landscapes from 1897 Annette Hoyt Flanders, Smith Col. to 1950, and she set a pattern profes- lege, class of 1910, traveled so much sionally for the many landscape gar- that it was not always possible for her deners who were women and women's to return to the small out-of-the-way landscape architectural concerns Her gardens that were her specialty When taste for gardening derived from a she completed the garden in 1939 for family interest and was developed on her fellow alumna, Elizabeth H. Web- her travels abroad, during which she ster, on the slope of a mountain in kept meticulous notes. Tryon, N.C., she admonished her: From her admiration for Gertrude "Remember, Betty, this is architec- Jekyll, the English landscape garden- ture; it must be kept toscale. er, she learned about the compatibility One of the biggest commissions of color and texture and how to use around New York in the 30's was the color like wash in painting, by grad- 1939 World's Fair, and one of the nine ual changes in shade rather than landscapers was a Cornell graduate, abrupt contrasts. Mrs. Farrand, like Helen Builard, who realized that "with other landscape gardeners of the day. modern buildings we cannot depend on acquired her skills through observation the classic forms, meaning the and inherent talents. straight beds and pattern gardens. Before she applied her own garden- On the West Coast, the Californian ing concepts, Mrs. Farrand studied landscape specialist, Florence Yoch, horticulture with Charles Sprague Sar- was changing her style from making gent at the Arnold Arboretum near exact copies of Mediterranean gardens Boston; but to his disappointment, this Inset Documents Collection College of Environmental Design. University of California, Berkeley in the 20's to more abstract forms in the prize pupil persisted in using her Box ellipse at Dumbarton Oaks, created by Beatrix Jones Farrand, inset, and redesigned by Alden Hopkins to her recommendations 30's. knowledge of plant life for design pur- Each of these women was recognized poses rather than in the interest of sci- at the peak of her professional per- ence. On the other hand, Abby Aldrich dens," on the buildings, which offer the scene of a two-day symposium on ria that still grows on the wooden posts formance. Their kind of lucrative prac- In the East, only two of her major Rockefeller's 1930 Eyrie Garden was color in each season, give the architec- "Beatrix Jones Farrand (1872-1959) linked by chains in the remnants of her tice, however, ended with the decline of gardens have been maintained in the specifically designed for summer. As ture the warmth we associate with the and 50 Years of American Landscape garden just north of the Pierpont Mor. residential work, and many of the es- intended style: Dumbarton Oaks in one walks from the dark woods through Ivy League. Another significant part of Architecture. Landscape architects gan Library on Madison Avenue at 36th tate gardens themselves are by now un. Washington, formerly the home of Mr. the portals of the Chinese wall, it is like Mrs. Farrand's career was her profes- participating in the conference became Street, which now belongs to the Lu- recognizable when compared to the and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss and now discovering the secret garden of sional office, at 120 East 42d Street. As aware of two problems facing the pro- theran Church in America. The vines original designs. part of Harvard University, and Eyrie Frances Hodgson Burnett's story. Al- she herself never drew the plans, her fession today. The first is that many and the marble sarcophagus in bed of But one garden from the 30's will re- Garden on Mount Desert Island in though Oriental in theme with sculp staff. always women, included drafts- universities now separate courses in ivy are all that are left of the 1928 gar. main just as it was. So much did ture from the Far East in secluded Maine. The Dumbarton Oaks garden is men trained at the Cambridge School design and horticulture into different den. George Cukor, the film director, ad. the more architectural and more Euro- _woodland settings, it is in essence a of Architecture and Landscape Archi- academic departments, making it diffi- mire Florence Yoch's work that he pean in influence, with its walls and large rectangular sunken flower gar- tecture for Women (which began in cult for the landscape architecture Only at Dumbarton Oaks can one see commissioned her to build a complete den, a Maine interpretation of Ger- stairways joining the intimate terraced 1915 and merged with Harvard in 1942). major to acquire the necessary degree the intended effect of wisteria fes- trude Jekyll's style taking advantage The office was organized so that when gardens each with a different floral of proficiency in both disciplines. The tooned along chains linking columns. It of the brilliant seaside hues of annuals Mrs. Farrand was away business con- second is an awareness that landscape motif - to the various fountains and stretches out garland-like along the and perennials. tinued as usual. And she was away greensward behind the mansion and is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. pools. In addition to her estate work, Beat. quite frequently after her marriage . architects have lost the leverage to maintained to perfection. This tech- Italian Renaissance garden in the rix Farrand excelled in landscaping to Dr. Max Farrand, a Yale professor control client maintenance after the nique of using ornamental vines as studio for his 1936 M-G-M film of university campuses, including those who became director of the Huntington completion of planting complements to architecture was a *Romeo and Juliet." The tall cy- Paula Deitz, co-editor of The Hudson of Princeton and Yale. Her wall "gar- Library in San Marino, Calif. Mrs. Farrand always insisted on hallmark of her work. presses and blossoming trees, the Review, is a guest columnist. This spring, Dumbarton Oaks was maintaining her gardens to scale. It is The Dumbarton Oaks symposium planted urns and the reflecting pool. therefore sad to see the scraggly wiste- the balcony in the distance - it endures forever on the silver screen, no mainte- nance at all, and yet always fresh and always in pale moonlight. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Design Notebook By PAULA DEITZ New York Times (1857-Current file); May 2, 1985; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times pg. C10 Design Notebook Retrospective of gardens by the landscape designer Beatrix Farrand. Blocked due to copyright. See full page image or microfilm. met the English landscape gardeners William Robinson and Gertrude Je kyll. In 1895, after training with Charles Sprague Sargent, the director of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard Uni- versity, Mrs. Farrand, still in her 20's, opened an office as a profes- sional landscape gardener on the top floor of her mother's East 11th Street house. In 1899, she was the only woman among the 11 founding mem- bers of the American Society of Land- scape Architects. In time, she moved her office, staffed mostly by women, Beatrix Farrand at her to 120 East 42d Street desk in a photograph Great gardens must be built slowly The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden in Seal Harbor, Many of Mrs. Farrand's most ambi- taken in the early 30's. tious commissions went on for dec. Me. Above, the flower garden. Right, a red spruce, seen ades. For example, two of her estate through the moon gate in the Chinese wall. gardens, both, fortunately, still in ex- By PAULA DEITZ istence, are the Abby Aldrich Rocke feller Garden at Seal Harbor, Me. tectural League's 1910 competition, and white at the north end around a incorporates her basic design vocabu- beautifully formed red spruce on an which she developed and maintained EATRIX JONES FARRAND. lary in a perspective drawing that axis with a traditional Chinese moon from 1926 to 1950 for Mr. and Mrs. B who is acknowledged as the John D. Rockefeller Jr., and Durn- would be suitable today: rectangu- gate. At the other end of the garden is first of America's eminent lar greensward edged with flower another opening in the wall, a gate barton Oaks in Washington, where female landscape designers, borders and gravel walks, an arbor shaped like an Oriental vase. she worked for Mr and Mrs. Robert is at last having a major retrospec- along one side and corner shade The restful Oriental woodland gar- Woods Bliss from 1921 to 1947. tive. An exhibition at Wave Hill gives trees. Mrs. Farrand's point was that dens are interspersed with shrines Mrs. Farrand was also commis- us a look at the best of the 176 projects formality gives the illusion of space and Buddhas in clearings. and a sioned to create designs for American she completed in her 50-year career to small properties where, as she Spirit Path is lined with Korean stone colleges and universities, including It is a rare chance to see what goes Blocked due to copyright. wrote, "a frank recognition of bound- sculptures. This path leads to a north Yale, where she worked from 1922 to into a landscape artist's work: The See full page image or ary is essential. vista of the Maine wilderness, and 1945, and the vine-covered wall gar- exhibition and catalogue include pre- For larger properties, she intro- curving around three sides of the gar- dens and yew walks at Princeton, de- microfilm. liminary sketches and surveys, duced a studied asymmetry: A1- den is a reddish-pink stucco wall vised between 1912 and 1943. meticulous plant lists, typed reports though there were strong axes, where coped with yellow tiles originally In the ephemeral architecture of a to clients and planting instructions one most expected resolution in the from the wall of the Forbidden City in garden that depends on plant materi- for their gardeners. design, there would, instead, be sub- Peking als as well as stone walls and wooden The curators for Beatrix Far- tle dissolution. In the same fashion, She did set a professional pattern pergolas, the preservation of draw- rand's American Landscapes: Her formal terraced enclosures would for the women who followed. 'Will ings is essential to recapture the Gardens and Campuses" are Diana open up to natural landscapes, as at you see that when my name goes on original form and scale. Mrs. Far- Balmori and Eleanor M. McPeck Dumbarton Oaks, where woodlands the rolls, she wrote to Yale in 1922, rand recognized this, for it was she landscape designers themselve and were cleared to reveal vistas beyond. "that am put down as Beatrix Far- who, in 1948, purchased Gertrude Je they have illustrated her early works The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Gar rand without any qualifying Mr. or kyll's papers from the Massachusetts and major commissions with elegant den combines Far Eastern sculptures Mrs. or Miss. as I regard Beatrix Horticultural Society Miss Jekyll's renderings, vintage sepia photo A 1910 suburban garden prospectus by Mrs. Farrand. A in secluded woodland settings with a Farrand as a sort of trade name. documents are, along with Mrs. Far- graphs and contemporary photo- picket fence encloses the boundary hedging. rectangular sunken English flower And these gardens, many displayed rand's, now at the College of Environ- graphs by Alan Ward. garden. Here, the flowers are a Maine for the first time, are her trademark. mental Design, University of Califor- Mrs. Farrand was born in 1872 and interpretation of Gertrude Jekyll's nia at Berkeley was raised in a special New York dens. Her drawings are the basis of the right trees, shrubs and vines for style, using colors like a wash in an Sometimes, as in this exhibition, the current restoration of the Dean's literary and social circle. Her moth- shades of green and autumnal reds, Impressionist painting The exhibition will continue the plans are all that remain of a gar- er. Mary Cadwalader Jones, was a Garden at the Graduate College of seasonal blossoms and the texture of The annual and perennial borders through Aug. 4. Hours: Tuesday den, except for those that have been close friend of Henry James and her Princeton University leaves, and only then did she consider on the east side of the flower garden through Sunday from 10 A.M. to 4:30 maintained by institutional owners or aunt was the novelist Edith Wharton Mrs. Farrand's designs began with floral borders. The plant materials are planted with brilliant hues of P.M. An admission of $2 is charged family heirs. David and Peggy Mrs Farrand's travels abroad in 1895 formal elements that eventually she worked with were usually indige- crimson, gold and dark blue mixed only on weekends. Wave Hill is at Rockefeller still own and oversee the merged at the edges with natural brought her to the European gardens nous to the region. with white to contrast with the pastel 249th Street and Independence Ave- Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden, cherished by Mrs. Wharton. She also landscapes that were selectively One early design, 'An Ideal Subur- shades of the west borders. They nue in the Riverdale section of the one of few remaining private gar- planned for effect. She emphasized ban Place,' submitted to the Archi- meet in a neutral zone of lavender Bronx: telephone 212-549-3200. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7/2/19 The Arnold Arboretum and the Early Years of Landscape Design Education in America Phyllis Andersen It was now gay with carriages in lilac time, and the attendance of students was frequently noted. Every spring and fall, John G. Jack could be seen leading a coterie of teachers and the horticultur- ally inclined from plant to plant. At times in between, Benjamin M. Watson's horticultural students from the Bussey Institution, or scholars of landscape gardening from Harvard's Lawrence Scientific School or the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, were observed, notebook in hand, pacing up and down the shrub collection rows or scrutinizing a label on the trunk of a healthy specimen tree.-A scene described by Ida Hay in her 1995 history of the Arnold Arboretum, Science in the Pleasure Ground O n July 1, 2002, the thirty-four-year-old Radcliffe Seminars Program in Landscape Design and Landscape Design History became the Arnold Arboretum's first formal program in landscape design. However, in the years between the Arboretum's found- ing in 1872 and the death in 1927 of its first director, Charles Sprague Sargent, the Arboretum was at the cen- ter of efforts to transform the practice of landscape gar- dening into the profession of landscape architecture. The Arnold Arboretum's initial involvement in the education of landscape designers was spurred by the interests of Sargent himself. To most people outside the Harvard community (and to many within it), Sargent was the Arboretum: it was his perspective, his personal- Holm Lea, the estate of Charles Sargent, in 1900, looking across the pond and Sargent's edge plantings to the main house. Arnddia 2003 62, 3 : 3-10. 4 Arnoldia 62/3 ity, and his research interests that defined the In 1932 Henry Vincent Hubbard, a landscape institution. Sargent brought to his position an architect and longtime faculty member in unshakable commitment to the picturesque Harvard's Department of Landscape Architec- landscape sensibility as espoused by William ture (and, in 1901, the program's first graduate), Gilpin, Uvedale Price, and Andrew Jackson reflected on the early years of his profession: Downing. Like his colleague Frederick Law In 1880 Olmsted, Sargent was contemptuous of exces- landscape architecture was beginning sive horticultural display, controlled formal to take its rightful place as one of the arts in America, recalling its traditional status of honor patterning, and showy floriferousness. His com- in Italy, France, England and Germany, and its mitment had been formed by European travel, still more ancient role in China and Japan. by his reading of Downing and others, and by his Olmsted and Vaux, drawing inspiration from admiration for the country estates of his cousins the legacies of Michaelangelo, LeNôtre, Repton, Henry Winthrop Sargent and H. H. Hunnewell. and Prince Puckler, had departed from the horti- During his early years at the Arboretum, cultural taste lingering in the works of Andrew Sargent transformed Holm Lea, his own 150- Jackson Downing, and had given in the Central acre estate in Brookline, Massachusetts, into Park, New York, and Prospect Park, Brooklyn, a one of the most admired country places in great public object-lesson in the differentiation America. He experimented freely at Holm Lea, of the landscape art from horticulture on the creating a landscape of open pastoral views one hand and from architecture on the other, as framed by groves of native trees, drifts of wild- well as from the basic and contributory science of engineering. flowers, a bucolic pond with cattle grazing at its edges. In the words of landscape historian The Apprenticeship Period of Landscape Cynthia Zaitzevsky, Sargent was "the last in the Design Education great tradition of gentlemen landscape garden- ers, at least in this region." Holm Lea, with all By 1883 Frederick Law Olmsted had moved his home and office from New York City to its apparently effortless scenery and its refer- ences to the pastoral, was no less manmade than Brookline, Massachusetts, in order to deal more the formal displays in Boston's Public Garden. efficiently with his firm's many projects in the By the 1880s, a growing market in both pub- Boston area. The Olmsted office quickly became lic park and estate design was pointing to a the training ground for a generation of landscape need for training more American landscape architects that included Charles Eliot, Warren designers. The success of Central Park and Pros- Manning, and the Qlmsted sons, Frederick Jr. pect Park in New York had been publicized by and John Charles In 1895, near the end of his many articles and illustrations in popular maga- professional career and with weakening health, zines, and planners in other cities had begun to Olmsted concentrated on making his office a recognize the need for parks to provide outdoor disciplined training ground. "We are gradually activities and a healthy environment for their preparing a grand professional post-graduate own growing urban populations. At the same school here," he wrote to his son Frederick Jr. In time, designers like Frederick Law Olmsted, the absence of academic programs in landscape Samuel Parsons, and Horace Cleveland, writing architecture, a period of apprenticeship, com- in literary magazines and journals of public bined with travel and supervised reading, was affairs, were articulating a role for landscape the only way to enter the profession Working designers in the public sphere. As a group they without pay or for a nominal stipend, appren- felt a need to assert their special knowledge tices trained with senior designers while provid- of land planning, planting schemes, and their ing a substantial service to the firm by taking on advocacy for both scenery and recreation. They the time-consuming tasks of surveying, draft- felt they had to differentiate themselves ing, and various kinds of fieldwork. Sargent from the architects, civil engineers, and horti- encouraged young men who wanted a career in culturists against whom they were competing landscape architecture to join the Olmsted firm for public contracts. for the educational experience. Two of his neph- Landscape Design Education 5 ews, Henry Sargent Codman (1864- 1893) and his younger brother Philip (1867-1896), joined Olmsted and Com- pany after a rigorous tour of Europe dur- The PRACTICIONERS ing which their itinerary was closely of Landscape in supervised by their uncle. Sargent also guided the early training HARVARD do in landscape design of Beatrix Jones (Farrand) (1872-1959). In the early hereby challenge the 1890s-a time when few opportunities students of landscape for formal education were available to the Olmsted Office to women-Ms. Jones became a private student of Sargent, using the Arnold candle pm match Arboretum as a laboratory for studying Thursday horticulture and design. It seems almost funny to look back on the February twenty first, haphazard way in which we forerunners of the army of women landscape architects got our education. My own work was started at the suggestion of Professor Charles Sprague Sargent of the Arnold Ar- boretum who, knowing my great interest in plants, suggested that I begin studying them with the idea of later practicing land- scape architecture or, as we called it then, landscape gardening. The whole scheme seemed to me so wild that it took some time to appreciate Professor Sargent's ear- nestness. Thanks, however, to his kind- A 1903/04 cartoon from the scrapbooks of the office of Olmsted ness and the hospitality of his family, I Brothers The Olmsted office continued to be a training ground for students even after the founding of the program in landscape spent several months working at the Arbo- architecture at Harvard. retum under his enthusiastic direction and with the benefit of his criticism. -Letter from Beatrix Farrand to Clarence Garden and Forest: A Journal of Horticulture, Fowler, a trustee of the Cambridge School of Landscape Art and Forestry 1888-1897 Architecture and Landscape Architecture, n.d.² Sargent did not set up an academic curriculum at the Arboretum, but he did found Garden and Male practitioners, too, were growing weary Forest in 1888. While it was not technically an of "haphazard" training and looking for ways to official publication of the Arnold Arboretum, it elevate their profession to an academic disci- was perceived as such by the general public and pline. Jacob Weidenmann, an early partner of by the Harvard administration. Subtitled." A Olmsted, then with his own office in Chicago, Journal of Horticulture, Landscape Art and For- believed that Sargent should fill the void: estry," it offered the then (and now) unique per- If a learned and scientific man like Sargent spective that the three fields were inextricably wishes, he would succeed in establishing a Pub- linked. Sargent listed himself as "conductor," lic Institute for Landscape gardening and by but the editor was William Stiles, an experi- chance Landscape Architecture would soon have enced New York journalist with a strong inter- to give way to real qualified talents. est in public park design. -Letter from Jacob Weidenmann to John The magazine became the voice of the emerg- Charles Olmsted, December 14, 1887³ ing profession. Articles by leading landscape 6 Arnoldia 62/3 architects (Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles tures and laboratory work in Botany, supple- Eliot, H. W. S. Cleveland, George Kessler, Frank mented by study of plants and garden-work at Waugh) began to define the field for an Ameri- the Botanic Garden. The second year includes a can audience as well as offer new strategies for course in Horticulture at the Bussey Institution, land stewardship and preservation. Garden and consisting of lectures, with study and practice in Forest also published carefully crafted essays on the greenhouses and in the field and garden. In the third and fourth years will be given succes- landscape gardening by the art critic Marianna sive courses on Plants in Relation to Landscape Van Rensselaer, later gathered in her book Art Planting, conducted mainly at the Bussey Insti- Out of Doors (1893). It made recommendations tution and the Arnold Arboretum. for readings on landscape gardening, described -Announcement of the Programme of educational opportunities, and discussed the Courses in Landscape Architecture, Lawrence need for qualified practitioners. As landscape Scientific School, March 1900.5 architect and historian Ethan Carr has written, "In an era before a professional organization or A one-year graduate program was instituted academic instruction existed in the field of land- in 1906 with previous courses in both horticul- scape architecture, Garden and Forest took on ture, botany, and geography recommended for aspects of both. 114 admittance. Again, the Arnold Arboretum was to be a venue for plant courses. The Arnold Arboretum and Landscape From the beginning, the Arboretum's collec- Architecture Studies at Harvard tion was of significant pedagogical value to stu- dents. The full spectrum of American species By the early 1890s, many people were urging would eventually form the backbone of the col- that Harvard develop a landscape architecture lection, but the Arboretum focused first on program, a notion supported by President assembling plants native to New England. Since Charles W. Eliot and by the geologist Nathaniel students in the early years of the Harvard Shaler, the very popular dean of Harvard's program were drawn primarily from the New Lawrence Scientific School. Since at that time it England region, where they often began their was the only department of the University that practice, their plant study at the Arboretum was offered advanced instruction in the physical and immediately useful to them after graduation. natural sciences, the Lawrence Scientific School The Bussey Institution was also well posi- was the logical home for such a program, and in tioned to serve as a resource for the new landscape 1900 Harvard launched the first degree-granting program. The Bussey was Harvard's experiment program in landscape architecture in the United in scientific agriculture and husbandry from States in that school. Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. 1871 to 1908 when it was converted to a was named its first director; his appointment graduate school in applied biology. Describing honored the legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted its mission as "not educating farmers' sons Sr. and set a precedent for practitioner/academic in a knowledge of their fathers' trade but faculty appointments that is still followed by recognizing the high and difficult character of landscape architecture programs across the husbandry," it had been the only Harvard pro- country. The University aligned the landscape gram offering training in horticulture to land- architecture program with the newly estab- scape architects before the design program was lished program in architecture, indicating an established. It was unique at Harvard for allow- expectation of a close collaborative relationship ing women to attend classes from time to time; between the fields, a collaboration that drew on Benjamin Watson, who taught horticultural science, engineering, and fine art. classes at the Bussey, was particularly support- The Arnold Arboretum and its allied institu- ive of women students: tion in Jamaica Plain-the Bussey Institution- Mr. Watson would also like to receive women in played integral roles in the new program. his course on Trees and Shrubs, or in the course on Particular attention will be given to the study of general Horticulture. He says that he has one good plants both as individuals and as elements of woman student in Landscape Gardening, and that landscaping. In the first year will be given lec- another woman has applied for the course in gen- Landscape Design Education 7 gram]. Horticultural and botanical studies in the laboratory and the field will extend through three years, and ample opportunities will be offered not only to learn the habits of trees, shrubs and plants but also to study landscape gardening effects in the park of the Arboretum We are fortunate in being able to establish a connection to the Arbo- retum, which Mr. Sargent's publications have made known throughout the world as a great hor- ticultural station.7 The Arboretum's courses for MIT were taught not by Sargent, who demurred at both formal teaching and lecturing, but by John George Jack (1861-1949), a Quebec native who had joined the Arboretum in 1886 to handle plant records. Because he showed a talent for working with the public, Sargent soon entrusted him with full responsibility for both public and academic education. Jack's lectures and field walks were always well attended and he was eventually given the title of Lecturer. Unlike Harvard in the early years of its pro- gram, MIT admitted several women. The land- scape architect Martha Brookes Hutcheson said of her MIT education: I saw at once that the curriculum did not give John George Jack instructing students at the Arnold nearly enough time to what must be known of Arboretum. the "plant world," the riches in material and easy study obtainable in the nearby Arnold Arbo- eral Horticulture. Watson is in favor of giving return were too great to be but half known so, women the same opportunities that he gives men. during three summers, I made exhaustive notes -Letter from Harvard President Charles W. there for my card catalog. Eliot to Professor Frank Storer, October 18, 18986 -"Three Women in Landscape Architecture"8 The MIT Program in Landscape Architecture Marian C. Coffin also valued her experience The Arnold Arboretum had a direct link to the at the Arnold Arboretum as an MIT student: program in landscape architecture at the Massa- chusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which At that time the course given at "Tech" was termed "Landscape Architecture" and was an began in 1900 and ended in 1908: it was devel- option in the architectural course and under the oped by Guy Lowell, who was married to guidance of Guy Lowell The last year we Charles Sargent's daughter Henrietta. The MIT diverged into purely landscape problems, while program, one of two options offered to architec- during the entire four years, we had engineering ture students, was open to both undergraduates problems and attendant mathematics of our own, and graduates until around 1904 and to gradu- as well as at least two days a week for study in the ates only from then until 1908, when the pro- Arnold Arboretum and for various trips about gram was discontinued. The importance of the Boston to see fine examples of landscape design Arboretum's role in the program was clearly To the splendid training in design we were given, outlined in the program description: to the three years of such hard work as I fancy few of the schools now insist upon, as well as to A very thorough course in Horticulture at the the patience and enthusiasm of Prof. Jack who Arnold Arboretum which is under the direction of guided our steps through an intensive training in Mr. Charles S. Sargent [will be part of the pro- plant material, I feel more than grateful.9 Journal of the New England garden History Society 1(1991): SERMON ON "THE MOUNT": EDITH JONES WHARTON'S INFLUENCE ON BEATRIX JONES FARRAND Diane Kostial McGuire THE INSTRUCTIVE EXAMPLE than Beatrix) 2 enabled her to become a writer of distinction. The characteristics that Beatrix and "As you know, it has been my good fortune to live all Edith shared were an indomitable will, the abil- my life with people who were my mental superiors, ity to pursue a single-minded goal, the ability to also in character, so that I know how much one can undertake independent thinking and action, and learn by working with one's superiors in other lines and even in one's own." restraint and economy in expression. During the years following the divorce, Beatrix Jones Farrand to H. Leland Vaughan, Minnie became Edith's literary agent, which December 9, 1958. 1 brought financial and professional realities directly into the household, realities that hereto- In this letter Beatrix Farrand, at the age of fore had only intruded indirectly. eighty-six, refers once again to her lifelong belief When Beatrix was twelve, Edith was that she was an artist among scholars, academi- twenty-two and Minnie was thirty-four. Edith cians, and men of worldly distinction. She bridged mother and daughter in age and shared believed she was a visual artist who did not com- characteristics of each. Minnie's interests were municate well in words and ideas; abstraction and predominantly social (she directed the New York GIDD philosophy were not her way of thinking, although Assembly Ball for a number of years) and literary she admired these abilities in others. The one (she was a close friend of Henry James), and her person whom she knew well from earliest child- "author's suite" on the second floor of her New hood and who bridged that seemingly wide gulf York brownstone was designed to make her liter- between visual thinking and verbal and literary ary friends as comfortable as possible. accomplishment was her aunt, Edith Wharton. Edith's interests were in literature and its Beatrix Farrand's father, Frederic Rhine- relation to culture, but they were also highly lander Jones, was Edith Wharton's older brother developed in the visual arts. These two interests by sixteen years. In 1870 "Freddy" married came together most brilliantly in The Decoration Mary "Minnie" Cadwalader Rawle in Philadel- of Houses, written with Ogden Codman 3 and pub- phia. Their only child, Beatrix, was born in New lished in 1897, and in Italian Villas and Their York on June 19, 1872, and they were divorced Gardens, with illustrations by Maxfield Parrish sometime before Beatrix was twelve. Beatrix was and published in 1904. As we shall see in her Edith's only niece and her only relative of the ideas for the design of the house and grounds of next generation. Little is known of Freddy, The Mount, her critical eye in the visual arts was except that he lived in Paris after the divorce, greater than the results of her creative endeavors. but significantly it is not known if he continued She managed several years later at Pavillon to have any direct influence on Beatrix's life He Colombe at St. Brice-sous-Forêt to create the was a Jones and many of the traits which Beatrix degree of ambience which she had been attempt- possessed which were to be of value in her life- ing at an earlier time in unsympathetic America. time pursuit of the art of landscape gardening It was the ambience of Minnie's salon, her can be attributed to the Jones family. Several of "author's suite," the rooms full of books and old these characteristics which were also shared by engravings, the sense of civilized tradition and her aunt Edith (who was only ten years older intellectual resource to which Edith responded 11 JOURNAL OF THE NEW ENGLAND GARDEN HISTORY SOCIETY 2. Edith and Teddy Wharton at the site of The Mount, around 1901. (Edith Wharton Restoration, Inc.) and tried to create herself at The Mount. It was In 1911 Edith left America and her hus- not quite the same. This was the result of per- band Teddy3 to live permanently in Europe. She sonality, Edith attempting to impose herself, her recognized that her sensibilities were more Euro- view, her critical sense on her immediate world, pean than American and that the kind of life she whereas Minnie created a receptive space in had attempted in America was more suitable and which her circle of brilliant literary minds could affordable abroad. Henry James discovered this impose themselves. too, but he finally settled in England rather than As a young woman, Beatrix recognized that on the Continent. Beatrix had these instructive her own physical attributes, her manner of being examples before her and rather than follow them with other people, her desire for single-minded exactly, lived on the eastern seaboard in Bar achievement, was more similar to her Aunt Edith Harbor, Maine, and became an anglophile. than to her mother. She knew that the beauty, While European influences, particularly charm, and brilliant wit of her mother would not Italian and French, dominated her work, British be possible for her. The hereditary inclination garden influences, especially those of Thomas and the visible aunt were both there to guide Mawson and Gertrude Jekyll, were of great Beatrix. Edith was the "other" who was able to importance; most significant for her were the indicate with great assertiveness to the young multifarious aspects of English life which fasci- Beatrix another path which led from the salon to nated her and which she emulated. She almost the marriage of nature and art, which was the imagined herself as an autocratic Edwardian gen- visual art of landscape gardening. 4 tlewoman. This image became a central part of 3. Vista from The Mount toward Laurel Lake around 1905. (Edith Wharton Restoration, Inc.) 12 SERMON ON "THE MOUNT": EDITH JONES WHARTON'S INFLUENCE ON BEATRIX JONES FARRAND The Mount - Residence of Mr. E. R. Wharton, Lenox, Mass. 4. The Mount, showing the Red Garden around 1905. The lattice work niche at right was designed by Ogden Codman, Jr., for Land's End, the previous Wharton summer house in Newport, Rhode Island, and moved to The Mount. (Edith Wharton Restoration, Inc.) hus- ee. She T Euro- life she ble and d this er than active her public professional identity, in the same way acres overlooking Laurel Lake, she asked Beatrix V them that the role of expatriate author was appropri- to assist her in the laying out of the grounds. Bar ated by Edith Wharton. At the same time she asked Ogden Codman to do the architectural work. There were, how- arly ever, difficulties with this and the interrupted British COLLABORATION AT THE MOUNT work was undertaken by Francis Hoppin, a mas "I have been so wishing that you might see my garden younger architect from New York. She mentions it lately. It is really what I thought it never could that Hoppin was doing work in the garden in the be-'a mass of bloom'! it looks for a fleeting 1904, and it seems that the work undertaken by asci- moment like a garden in some civilized climate." Beatrix was probably not as complete in detail as nost 6 Beatrix had originally thought it should be. Edith Wharton to Sara Norton, July 23, 1905. What did Edith Wharton want in the land- in gen- art of In 1901, Edith Wharton age thirty-nine scape and gardens at The Mount? It is my impres- and Beatrix Jones age twenty-nine were both on sion that she wanted to reproduce the atmosphere the threshold of important professional work. of the old Italian gardens with which she was famil- Edith had already published two volumes of iar from her Italian journeys; impressions that she short stories, The Greater Inclination (1899) and eventually recorded so masterfully in Italian Villas Crucial Instances (1901). Her first novel, The Val- and Their Gardens. Here was the opportunity to ley of Decision, was also published in 1901, but it create formality and naturalism in the same land- would not be until 1905 with the publication of scape and Beatrix Jones accepted this challenge The House of Mirth that she would receive wide and succeeded extremely well, in spite of the fact acclaim. Almost all of the early garden design that the charm of the Italian Garden is that ven- work done by Beatrix from her mother's house in erable impression of the hand of time. New York was located on Mount Desert Island, From my study of this landscape I believe either in Bar Harbor or Seal Harbor, and she had that most of the work implemented by Beatrix not yet had a commission as interesting and artis- Jones in 1901-02 is still in evidence, and what is tically complex as The Mount turned out to be. not in evidence is findable. From the written Since 1899, Edith had been visiting Lenox, evidence and from plans which exist in the Reef Any Massachusetts, and staying at Pine Acre, the Point Collection, I believe that Edith was proba- house of her mother-in-law, She saw the beauty of bly responsible for the siting of the house7 and the Berkshires and considered the possibility of perhaps that of the stable. It is likely that Beatrix building a house there. When she purchased 113 developed an overall site plan, and it was in this 13 JOURNAL OF THE NEW ENGLAND GARDEN HISTORY SOCIETY 5-8. The site of The Mount as photographed by Beatrix Jones around 1901. (College of Environmental Design Documents Collection, University of California, Berkeley) 14 r SERMON ON "THE MOUNT": EDITH JONES WHARTON'S INFLUENCE ON BEATRIX JONES FARRAND 9. The Mount, showing the gravel path leading from the Red Garden (concealed at left) to the woodland. (Edith Wharton Restoration, Inc.) aspect that the collaboration was strongest, with and copper, is an excellent one, and LaFolette, a the configuration and location of the main drive gigantea shading from blush to copper, is one of the and all the outlying paths being a collaborative best bloomers in her garden." effort. There is a detailed plan of the kitchen Beatrix Farrand to William Hertrich, garden and one of road culverts as well as others. February 27, 1931. The proportions of the kitchen garden and of the red garden are again those of the work of Beatrix It is not likely that Beatrix Farrand would Jones, although in the latter case, the choice of have worked in California to the extent that she plantings would have been very much a collabo- did had not her husband Max Farrand been rative effort, if not eventually undertaken solely appointed first director of the Henry E. Hunting- by Wharton. ton Library and Art Gallery in San Marino. It is The Italian Garden8 is probably the result apparent from the work she accomplished there of the design of Hoppin and Wharton and may that she did not find creative inspiration in that be what the 1904 activities in the garden were. new horticultural and cultural world. Instead she The impression remains that Wharton was an took the long view to the east, directly across the enthusiastic and knowledgeable client, and that United States and the Atlantic Ocean to the parts of the landscape and the house about England, once again, and to the Mediterranean which she cared the most presented the most where her Aunt Edith had her winter house and difficulty in collaboration. garden at Hyeres, and had become technically The Mount was the only house which Edith expert in the uses of Mediterranean plants. built and the only landscape in which she started At first it seems unusual to look to England with a certain blankness on the page. In her later for inspiration in California, yet in her early tours gardens in Europe at Pavillon Colombe and in the of English gardens, Farrand noted that certain South of France at Ste. Claire du Vieux Chateaux in California plants such as Ceanothus and Garrya Hyeres, she was working within existing frame- were grown as wall-specimens because of the works and it was in these gardens, especially at warmth afforded by the walls. These plants Pavillon Colombe, where it was possible for her to became associated (as did the southern Magnolia create a greater illusion of the "hand of time." grandiflora) with English country houses in the same manner that citrus plants in pots became associated with northern Italian gardens, INFLUENCE FROM THE MEDITERRANEAN although the climate required their storage in "The Montonoa Wercklei is said by my Aunt, glass-fronted buildings in winter. Mrs. Wharton, to be a beautiful creeper I am She drew on these associations in her design told by Mrs. Wharton that the rose, Souvenir de work, surrounding her garden beds with low Leonie Viennot, a shaded sort from rose to blush hedges, substituting the Mediterranean Myrtus 15 JOURNAL OF THE NEW ENGLAND GARDEN HISTORY SOCIETY 10. Olea europaea (European olive) lining pathway at the California Institute of Technology, designed by Beatrix Farrand around 1930. (College of Environmental Design Documents Collection, University of California, Berkeley) for the English Buxus, the Mediterranean Olea strong contemporary design movement in land- europaea for the eastern Cornus florida. scape architecture known as the California School The design work that Farrand did for the gained momentum and reached its greatest influ- George Ellery Hale Solar Observatory in Pasadena ence in the ebullient prosperity of the years fol- in 1929 and for the Humanities Garden at the lowing World War II. On the one hand, Farrand California Institute of Technology in 1932 has a looked steadfastly back to the Mediterranean for pervasive Mediterranean character, in the sim- design and to her Aunt Edith for planting advice plicity of the design, in the charm of the plant- and then on the other hand she eventually gave ings, and in the development of spatial illusion her entire Reef Point Collection of books, (which still infuses these sites). Edith Wharton engravings, and manuscripts, including her Ger- gave direct advice through lists of plants which trude Jekyll collection, to the school of landscape she used in these gardens, as in the gardens she architecture at the University of California at developed outside of the Director's House, and Berkeley, the school which was associated more in the gardens and orchard outside of her office. than any other with teaching contemporary Cali- At the time Farrand was in California 10 the fornia landscape design. 11. The Humanities Garden at Dabney Hall at the California Institute of Technology designed by Beatrix Farrand around 1930. (College of Environ- mental Design Documents Collec- tion, University of California, Berkeley) 16 SERMON ON "THE MOUNT": EDITH JONES WHARTON'S INFLUENCE ON BEATRIX JONES FARRAND NOTES 1. Oxford English Dictionary, 1971, Letter from College of Envi- 7. See Figure 2 showing Edith and p. 2738. "Sermon" is used here in ronmental Design Documents Col- Teddy. This was probably taken the English sense as "Something lection, University of California, when the decision had been made that affords instruction or example." Berkeley. where to locate the house before The Mount, Edith Wharton's Wharton involved Farrand in land- house in Lenox, Massachusetts, was 2. Mary Cadwalader Rawle Jones scape work. built in 1901 and is presently (1850-1935); Edith Jones Wharton owned by the Edith Wharton Res- (1862-1937); Beatrix Jones Farrand 8. Beatrix Jones may have designed (1872-1959). an Italian Garden for this site, but toration, Inc. The Mount was named after the house in Astoria, there is no existing drawing. 3. The Decoration of Houses (New New York, of Edith's great- York, 1897) was Edith Wharton's 9. William Hertrich, author of The grandfather, Major-General Eben- first important book. Huntington Botanical Gardens, 1905- ezer Stevens. 1949, was landscape designer and Edith Jones Wharton, Author 4. Beatrix Jones began her studies curator of the gardens when Max (1862-1937); Beatrix Jones Far- in 1892 with Charles Sprague Sar- Farrand was appointed Director of rand, Landscape Gardener (1872- gent, founder and first director of the Library and Art Gallery. 1959); H. Leland Vaughan, Profes- the Arnold Arboretum. 10. Beatrix Farrand originally sor of Landscape Architecture, University of California, Berkeley, 5. Edith Jones and Edward R. came to California in 1927 when Wharton were married in 1885 and Max was appointed Director. After represented the University in the divorced in 1913. his retirement they continued to bequest of the Reef Point Collec- spend the coldest winter months in tion, now in the College of Environ- 6. Letter from Edith Wharton to Santa Barbara. After Max's death in mental Design Documents Collec- her friend Sara Norton, Research 1949, Beatrix continued to come, tion, University of California, Collection, the Edith Wharton Res- until a month before her own death Berkeley. toration, Inc., Lenox, MA. in 1959. 17 1. Beatrix Jones (Farrand} at age twenty-four, five years before she undertook work at The Mount. Por- trait by Sara Choate Sears. (College of Environmen- tal Design Documents Collection, University of California, Berkeley) Beatrix Farrand Environmental Design Library | UC Berkeley Page 1 of 12 UC BERKELEY LIBRARY I HOME SEARCH Environmental Design Library Beatrix Farrand: A Bibliography of Her Life & Work Beatrix Farrand is considered one of the most important 20th century American landscape architects. Her work encompasses more than 200 known private gardens, estates, and institutions, in the United States and elsewhere. Beatrix Farrand: A Bibliography of Her Life & Work is a selective bibliography of books, journal articles, and newspaper reports by and about Farrand. It updates Lamia Doumato's 1988 bibliography on Farrand; please refer to Doumato's work for items not repeated here, especially journal articles. While this bibliography is not a comprehensive list of everything written about Farrand, it does attempt comprehensive coverage of information about Farrand's contributions to the University of California, Berkeley. This guide also lists resources for readers interested in uncovering additional information about Farrand. Quick Facts FARRAND AT UC BERKELEY Bibliographies The Farrand Gift Farrand's Writings Books & Periodicals Farrand's Work Drawings, Prints, & Documents Plant Specimens RESEARCHING FARRAND Finding Books Finding Articles Finding Unpublished Material Links For additional assistance please consult The Library's catalogs or the Environmental Design Library reference staff, 210 Wurster Hall. UC Berkeley faculty, registered students, and staff who are off campus may use items marked UCB Only or UC Only by using The Library's off-campus access services. CONDITIONS of USE Compiled by Deborah Sommer. Content reviewed: June 2010 QUICK FACTS Beatrix Cadwalader Jones was born in 1872 into a family of socially prominent New Yorkers, who maintained a summer home called Reef Point in Bar Harbor, Maine. She had a close relationship with writer Edith Wharton, her paternal aunt. In the early 1890s she received private tutoring in landscape design from Charles Sprague Sargent, director of Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum in what is now the Jamaica Plains neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. After establishing her office in New York City in 1896, she rapidly achieved recognition in her self-styled profession as a landscape gardener. In the 1898 publication Noted Women the World Over, she is described as "an authority on forestry, as well as a skilled landscape architect. She has received satisfactory recognition and due patronage, though she has not long practiced her profession." (p.49) The following year Farrand worked with Frederick Olmsted, Jr., Warren Manning, and others, to found the American Society of Landscape Architects. http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ENVI/beatrixfarrand.html 5/23/2011 Beatrix Farrand Environmental Design Library | UC Berkeley Page 11 of 12 Periodicals index online (formerly Periodicals contents index) via Chadwyck - UC Only Indexes periodicals, newspapers, government documents, and more. Includes some full-text access. International scope. Coverage: 1665-1995 Research Library via ProQuest - UCB Only Includes abstracts and indexing to more than 1,100 periodical titles, plus current coverage of New York Times articles. It includes some full text. Coverage varies Royal Institute of British Architects Library online catalog Indexes both journal articles and books. Search terms can be found in its thesaurus, Architectural Keywords (NA31 A77 Index). Formerly called Architectural Periodicals Index. Online ed.: 1980s-- Print ed.: 1972- EnvDesign NA8 A73 Index top Newspaper Indexes In addition to the indexes listed here, some newspapers are available full text on the web; information regarding archives of older issues is sometimes available at these sites. See the Library's home page- Find Information- Electronic Resources- Electronic Resources by Type- News Databases for a list of links to online full-text local and international newspapers, and other news media. Historical newspapers online via Chadwyck-Healey - UCB Only Contains four major historical resources: Palmer's Index to the Times (1790 to 1905); Palmer's Full Text Online (1785-1870), which provides access to the full-text articles referenced in Palmer's index to the Times; The Official Index to the Times (1906 to 1980); The Historical Index to the New York Times (1851- 1923). Coverage: Varies Lexis-Nexis Academic - UCB Only Includes indexing to journals and newspapers and provides full text. Coverage: Varies Local newspaper indexes: Local public libraries sometimes index local newspapers; for example, see the Maine News Index Online (Portland Public Library). Check the online directory of public libraries (Libweb) for libraries serving communities that are home to Farrand's projects. top Finding Unpublished Materials (Archives) Unpublished materials (also known as archival materials) pertaining to Farrand's life and work, such as correspondence, garden plans, etc., may reside in archives, historical societies, and local libraries. Most state libraries also maintain archival collections of public and other records. To locate materials in libraries not listed in the Melvyl catalog, use WorldCat - UC Only via OCLC FirstSearch or WorldCat.org (tutorial). Best starting place: Environmental Design Archives (UC Berkeley) - THE Farrand archive. Description of the collection online. http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ENVI/beatrixfarrand.html 5/23/2011 Beatrix Farrand Environmental Design Library | UC Berkeley Page 12 of 12 American Association for State and Local History home page - Provides links at the state and national levels to historical societies and other historical organizations. Directory of historical organizations in the United States and Canada. Nashville, TN: AASLH Pr., American Association for State and Local History, 1990-- EnvDesign & Main E172 A562 Archives of American gardens, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. - Contains thousands of photographic images, searchable through the Smithsonian's archives and manuscripts catalog. The major collections in the Archives are: Garden Club of America Collection and others. Online archive of California - Brings together historical materials from a variety of California institutions, including museums, historical societies, and archives. Includes more than 120,000 images. Some of Farrand's correspondence is scattered among various California institutions. The Dartington Hall Trust Archive & Collection, Totnes, United Kingdom Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, Washington, DC - Online catalog Harvard University Library, Boston, MA - Online archival catalog Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, CT - Beatrix Farrand at Hill-Stead The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, CA - Online catalog Jessup Memorial Library, Bar Harbor, ME - Maine Vertical File Index Pierpont Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY - Online catalog Princeton University Library, Princeton, NJ - Finding aids The Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, NY Yale University Library Manuscripts and Archives, New Haven, CT top Links Architectural League of New York Beatrix Farrand Garden Association - Dedicated to preserving the Beatrix Farrand Garden at Bellefield in Hyde Park, New York. Beatrix Farrand Society, Bar Harbor, ME National Park Service top Environmental Design Library HELP/FAQ CATALOGS COMMENTS HOME Copyright © 2011 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Last updated 03/17/11. Server manager: Contact. http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ENVI/beatrixfarrand.html 5/23/2011 GC History: Beatrix Farrand Page 1 of 2 Beatrix Farrand: Landscape Architect When the sweep of wisteria tracing the Old Quadrangle walls of the Graduate College or on the archway between Henry and Foulke halls lifts your spirits, when jasmine perfumes your walk near McCosh Infirmary or you feel welcomed by the dome-shaped yews coming up from the Dinky station, you have Beatrix Jones Farrand to thank. Making the campus her canvas, Farrand, Princeton's first consulting landscape architect, created a living artwork using vines, the solidity of trees and the impact of concentrated color as her palette. From 1912 to 1943 Farrand coaxed dictated and oversaw the shaping of the University's grounds - from the Graduate College to the main campus, where she favored the sugar maple, the sweet gum, the beech and the tulip poplar. Later she would go on to transform a dozen campuses, including Yale and the University of Chicago: assist in plantings at the White House; design library grounds for J. Pierpont Morgan in New York and the Huntington in California, embellish private residences, and create her masterpiece - the gardens at Dumbarton Oaks, in Washington, D.C. Farrand preferred to be called a "landscape gardener" - not an architect - since gardening was an acceptable activity for a woman of her time. She grew up in the Gilded Age society, nurtured by such extraordinary people as her paternal aunt, the novelists Edith Wharton (also an avid gardener) and Henry James, who called young Beatrix "Trix," and was one of several writers in her mother's social circle. The only woman among the founders of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Farrand acknowledged she had an eye for landscaping the way a musician must have an ear for music. That intuition, together with disciplined study, social position and independent income helped the reserved young woman forge her way. There were no schools of landscape architecture. Instead, Farrand served an apprenticeship with Charles Sprague Sargent, founder of Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum, learning botanical names and how to fit a plan to the grounds rather than the other way around. She capped her education with studies of great landscape paintings and several grand tours of Europe's great gardens. When she was barely 20, Farrand started her business from a room in her mother's New York City brownstone, designing gardens for fashionable residences, including those of John D. Rockefeller and Mrs. Henry Cabot Lodge. At the height of her career she had three offices, in New York, Connecticut (later California) and Maine Unlike landscape painting, a living landscape - affected by seasons and the passage of time - requires constant attention. Farrand maintained an ongoing relationship with many clients in order to supervise the changes in her evolving canvas. Several times yearly, she strode through the Princeton Campus looking at every tree and bush and giving specific instructions for pruning, planting and cultivation. During a dinner engagement in 1913 with the president of Yale, Farrand met her future husband, Max Farrand of the Princeton Class of 1892, then chairman of Yale's history department On hearing about the rumored romance, Max's sister-in-law went to Princeton to get an undetected look at the landscape gardener in action. After watching "Trix" direct the workmen, she went home to report, "If that lady really wants Max, she'll get him." The couple married that year. On the Princeton campus, Farrand used native plants and trees, choosing varieties that http://www.princeton.edu/~gradcol/perm/farrand.htm 8/6/2002 GC History: Beatrix Farrand Page 2 of 2 bloom in spring or fall when the university is in session. She believed in offering the eye beautiful vistas on which to gaze. She explained in the Princeton Alumni Weekly: "We all know that education is by no means a mere matter of books, and that the aesthetic environment contributes as much to growth as facts assembled from a printed page." Princeton is a very different place from the contained campus Farrand knew, yet her artistry endures. When the yews on Blair Walk failed, they were replaced and remain pruned in the haystack shape Farrand envisioned. The roses at the Graduate College's Wyman House are those Farrand planted, and her concept of that garden, after years of neglect, was restored in the 1970s. A few of the weeping forsythia espaliered on Holder Hall still bloom each spring as do her massed dogwoods at the Graduate College. "I have all her plans, the articles she wrote," says James Consolloy, Princeton's grounds manager. "She used plantings that could stand the test of time. Every new building we have on campus today has its own architect - and I tell each one of them to read Beatrix Farrand." Farrand herself, if she walked back on campus, could sit and contemplate her living canvas from the ivy-shaded curved bench installed in her honor next to the University Chapel. The inscription reads: "Her love of beauty and order is everywhere visible in what she planted for our delight." This profile of Beatrix Farrand, authored by Maria LoBiondo, first appeared in Princeton: With One Accord, Fall 1998. Home History Events People Facilities Directions Pictures Links This site is maintained and updated by the Residence Life Coordinator. Last update June 27, 2000. http://www.princeton.edu/~gradcol/perm/farrand.htm 8/6/2002 The Huntington Library, Art Collections, And Botanical Gardens Page 1 of 2 THE HUNTING TON Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens Calendar Membership I Amorpholhallus titanum "Stinky Plant" I The Huntington Shop I Employment Library I Art Collections | Botanical Gardens I Research and Education Public Tours I School Tours I Huntington Library Press I Information / Hours of Operation A day spent enjoying the cultural treasures of The Huntington wouldn't be complete without a stop at The Café and Rose Garden Tea Room. "In the News" at The Huntington Amorpholhullus titanum "Stinky Plant" Prepares to Bloom a Second Time Student Photography on Exhibit Morris Exhibition: Creating the Useful and the Beautiful Chinese Garden to be created at The Huntington Huntington Explorers Summer Day Camp Antarctica's First Published Book on Display at The Huntington ONLINE EXHIBITS http://www.huntington.org/ 8/6/2002 at Summer H June, is gh the Report onths Rockland that 74) the and I Anne A Biographical Dictionary of take place ed on May 27 Architects in Maine wood. in Hopewell, Vol. 6 (1991) es North Have n Journal, Augu vorced before she was twelve. Tutored at home within :land Courier. the protected atmosphere and "mild and melancholy glamour" of Washington Square, she often traveled abroad with her mother and with her aunt, that om- ven, in Bring nivorous traveler and garden lover Edith Wharton. At twenty she studied landscape design and horticulture SCA. under Charles Sprague Sargent, founder and director ver and the ork, 1976, of the Arnold Arboretum. Although she later 1935, p. 46. developed her own philosophy of design, she always followed Sargent's advice 'to make the plan fit the ground and not twist the ground to make the plan". ow Morgan, It was during this formative period that Jones pub- 'pen Doors, Die lished her first known article on landscape gardening. 4, p. 193. This 1893 essay, entitled "Nature's landscape-garden- ), ERCMP/SC ing in Maine", bears quoting here in part as it indicates Jones' early preference for native materials and pictur- VINGS esque effects: Every lover of nature must have noticed how beautiful the rendering of edge of a wood is in early summer, when the dark branch uction drawin of an evergreen throws out the paler green of some ree sheets relat deciduous neighbor. In the clearing and planting which are ion of the Ave necessary on some places every year, should we not try sity in New Yor to get like effects? To give an effect of distance on a small place, why could we not plant a line of dark, thick foliaged trees on distant points, then leave a space, plant- S IN MAINE ICH Beatrix Jones Farrand ing a second grove of smaller light foliaged trees? The space will give distance and depth to the background while the 1872-1959 darker green trees, if placed on the most distant height, -11, Extant are valuable at sunset, as they always seem to keep the last sboro, Addition light. If there is to be a large lawn, it is well to keep in mind that the creeping shadows made by trees planted on the Beatrix Jones Farrand's achievement as a landscape western edge will be very beautiful in the long summer 28, Extant architect is intimately related to her experience as a long afternoons. It will be noticed that only such trees grow on resident of Mt. Desert Island. At the age of eighteen the coast of Maine, as I am most familiar with that part of she observed the laying out of the grounds of her the country. S family's summer place, Reef Point at Bar Harbor. Reef Encouraged by Sargent to become a professional, Point became, after her marriage to Max Farrand, her Jones began taking private commissions in 1896. To thor wishest principal office and home and later the site of one of this period belongs Jones' drawing for Lych Gate, Seal versity of VII the most ambitious projects of her professional life. Harbor (Figure 1). This charming and spirited water- Smith College Farrand designed over forty gardens on Mt. Desert. color indicates Jones' preference for well crafted archi- Approximately one third of these were damaged or tectural detail and for pictorial effects. Her early efforts destroyed by the fire which raged through Bar Harbor gained her immediate recognition. Commenting on her were others Northeast in October, like her experimental gardens through gardens neglect. Point 1947. Other at Seal Harbor and work for Edgar Scott in 1896, the Bar Harbor Record Harbor have suffered Still observed: own at Reef Every one interested in woman's work is watching with ervation dismantled after World War II for economic interest this decidedly new and quite ambitious departure easons. Fortunately several of Farrand's gardens re- of Miss Jones from the conventional woman's sphere. It main as living evidence of her genius as a designer. is the first instance of a woman, a young, attractive society Beatrix Jones in Farrand was born in New York City girl in reality, taking upon herself such a mammoth task, 1872, the only child of Mary Cadwalader Rawle and but she is certainly carrying it through most commendably, Frederick shirking none of the hard and disagreeable details, and Rhinelander Jones. Her parents were di- handling big crews of men with great tact and dignity.2 NOTES Residence of Mrs. Herbert L. Satterlee, Bar Harbor, Village Green and Athletic Field, Bar Harbor, 1922 1 Beatrix Jones, Garden and Forest, September 6, 1893, p. 378. Residence of Mrs. A.G. Thacher, Bar Harbor, 1922 2 Bar Harbor Record, September 30, 1896. Residence of Parker Corning, Bar Harbor, 1923-25 3 Beatrix Jones, "The Garden as a Picture", Scribner's Magazine, Residence of Mildred McCormick, Bar Harbor, 1923- July, 1907, pp. 2-11. Residence of Walter Ayer, Bar Harbor, 1924-25 4 Eleanor M. McPeck, "The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden, Seal Harbor Green, Seal Harbor, 1924 Seal Harbor, Maine (1926-1950)", Beatrix Farrand's American The Haven, Residence of Gerrish H. Milliken, Northeast Landscapes, Her Gardens and Campuses, Sagaponack, New 1925-45 York, 1985, pp. 44-53. Residence of Mrs. Gerrish Beale, Bar Harbor, 1926 5 John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Road Notes, November 4, 1930, Residence of Jacob S. Disston, Northeast Harbor, 19 Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown, New York. Residence of Mrs. Bradford Fraley, Northeast Harbo Ann Rockefeller Roberts, Mr. Rockefeller's Roads, Camden, Residence of Robert McCormick, Bar Harbor, 1926-3 1990. The Eyrie Garden, Residence of John D. Rockefeller, 6 Reef Point Gardens, Notes, September 16, 1939, Farrand Col- Harbor, 1926-50 lection, University of California, Berkeley. Residence of Mrs. Charlton Yarnall, Northeast Harbor 7 Robert Patterson, Letter to Bar Harbor Times, February 18, Residence of William Pierson Hamilton, Bar Harbor, 1985. Residence of Mrs. Morris Hawkes, Bar Harbor, 1927 8 Beatrix Jones, "The Garden as a Picture'', Scribner's Magazine, Residence of Mrs. Vance McCormick, Northeast Harbor July, 1907, pp. 2-11. Rockhurst, Residence of Charles E. Sampson, Bar 1927-36 Acadia National Park, Carriage Roads for John D. Ro LIST OF KNOWN COMMISSIONS IN MAINE Jr., Mount Desert Island, 1928-41 Residence of Mrs. Byrne, Bar Harbor, 1928 BY BEATRIX FARRAND Residence of Potter Palmer, Bar Harbor, 1928-29 The following list of Beatrix Farrand's Maine projects is based Residence of E.T. Stotesbury, Bar Harbor, 1928-31 upon the compilation of her commissions from 1891 to 1949 Residence of Mrs. Gano Dunn, Sutton Island, 1929 found in Beatrix Farrand's American Landscapes, Her Gardens and Residence of Henry Rawle, Northeast Harbor, 1929- Campuses by Diana Balmori, Diane Kostial McGuire, and Eleanor Residence of W. Barton Eddison, Northeast Harbor, M. McPeck, Sagaponack, New York, 1985, and the research of Arnold House, Residence of Harry G. Haskell, N Patrick Chassé of Northeast Harbor. Harbor, 1931 Northeast Harbor Tennis Club, Northeast Harbor, 1 Chiltern, Residence of Edgar T. Scott, Bar Harbor, 1896, 1901-12 St. Saviors Church, Bar Harbor, 1944 Lych Gate, Seal Harbor, 1897 Guest House of David Rockefeller, Seal Harbor, 194 Residence of Dr. E.K. Dunham, Seal Harbor, 1898 Capitol Park, Augusta Residence of E.C. Bodman, Seal Harbor, 1900 Residence of Miss Charlotte Baker, Bar Harbor Residence of H.R. Hatfield, Bar Harbor, 1900 Residence of Robert P. Bowler, Bar Harbor Residence of Robert Abbe, Bar Harbor, 1901 Residence of Eugene S. Bristol, Bar Harbor Residence of George S. Bowdoin, Bar Harbor, 1902 Residence of Mrs. Alfred Coates, Bar Harbor Residence of E.G. Fabbri, Bar Harbor, 1903 Residence of Miss Lucy Frelinghuysen, Northeast F Residence of William F. Apthorp, Hulls Cove, 1906 Residence of C.A. Herter, Seal Harbor Reef Point, Residence of Beatrix Farrand, Bar Harbor, 1914-28 Kane Memorial Bridge, Bar Harbor Residence of Frank Bailey Rowell, Bar Harbor, 1917 Residence of Mrs. Morris McCormick, Bar Harbor Tanglewold, Residence of Mrs. A. Murray Young, Bar Harbor, Woodlands, Residence of William S. Moore, Bar Ha 1917 Residence of Henry Morganthau, Bar Harbor Residence of Mrs. Dave Hennen Morris, Bar Harbor, 1919 Mount Desert Island Hospital, Bar Harbor Residence of Mrs. F.B. Richard, Blue Hill, 1919 Residence of Mrs. James B. Murphy, Seal Harbor Residence of Mrs. Hanna, Seal Harbor, 1920 Residence of Mrs. Charles T. Pike, Bar Harbor Stoney Point, Residence of Edwin Corning, Northeast Harbor, Residence of Roland Taylor, Northeast Harbor 1921 Residence of Mrs. Archibald Courley Thatcher, N Eastholm, Residence of Richard M. Hoe, Seal Harbor, 1921-24 Harbor Photograph of Beatrix Farrand Courtesy of the Trustees of Harvard University, Dumbarton Oaks Volume VI, 1991 Published by Maine Citizens for Historic Preservation Box 1198, Portland, Maine 04104 Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr., Editor Roger G. Reed, Associate Editor BROWN- Ton Jhalian 8/1/08. Beatrix had grown up loving and needing the beautiful Mount Desert 27 landscape in a way perhaps she did not quite understand herself. She had acquired her landscape "eye," her ability to understand the quality of a face. which could never have been learned in New York, and without Divorce! And Solace in which she could not have progressed. "No one should attempt the profession an Earthly Paradise who has not by nature a quality which corresponds to the musician's ear for music," she was to tell future aspirants. "No one can be a landscape gardener who has not an eye any more than a musician can be made from a person who has no ear." She spent the summer of her twenty-first birthday, 1893, reading, observ- ing. photographing, and noting down the details of her beloved island: "I no- Iced a pretty grouping of trees on the side of a hill. They backed against a rail fence and looking at them from below they seemed to be in a close mass." She propped up her bicycle and investigated further. "Looked at from the side the lrown and from the same level though the effect was quite different "32 The lay- out of the trees that made such an effect was paced out and sketched; they were spaced out in a roughly triangular form, an irregular row of white pine, white and yellow spruce against the fence, with a loosely spaced trio of birch, the yellow and a white spruce in front, and, at the very front, a tight threesome of white spruce. She had learned an elementary lesson of nature-it was best to plant in tight, unevenly numbered groupings and make a contrast with looser gatherings. 1672 Villing 1959 One of Beatrix's favorite places on the island was Oldfarm the Dorr fam- ily home at Compass Harbor, south of Bar Harbor. Charles F. Dorr, who had made his money out of textiles in New England, prided himself on the first jusi 1959. really well built house on the island, with its base of granite boulders split out from the adjacent gorge and shingles of California redwood. Mrs. Mary Ward Dorr, a friend of Beatrix's mother, in turn prided herself on the first formal garden in Bar Harbor. Undoubtedly the garden attracted Beatrix, but there was also the Dorr family talent for sympathetic knowledge of the natural habi- 7 tats and virtues of their island, epitomized by their bachelor son, George Bucknam Dorr.33 George Dorr was always to be Beatrix's friend and adviser. She watched his campaign for the island's conservation with interest and one day, when she was a distinguished practitioner of her art, she would repay his early kindnesses. From the first approach Oldfarm inspired her. "The trees along the Old- farm waterfront are quite tall SO that one cannot see [the] coastline. This seems to give the effect of quite a big drop, that is, it looks as though the trees were on top of a cliff and SO gives the hill on which the house stands [a feeling of more height. The middle distance is blue later-Point d'Acadie on left and Round Porcupine with its black cliffs on R. This is carried on to the 3 next Porcupines, and on the horizon to the Gouldsboro' Hills [on the Schoodic peninsula]." She sums up- "The view is not seen all at once, and the lines of the foreground are as irregular as those of the hills in the distance." Oldfarm's Brown - 2 28 prospect was shared-at a slightly different angle-with Reef Point. Beatrix trimmed and planted, and photographed the view to the end of their own garden and beyond, with its careful reiteration of the Oldfarm lessons of fram- BEATRIX ing a view, concealing some things and revealing others, and imitating the nat- The Gardening Life of ural forms to emphasize atmosphere. She had learned, by observation at Oldfarm, Frederick Law Olmsted's second principle of landscape design, Beatrix Jones Farrand " creation of designs that are in keeping with the natural scenery and topography; respect for, and full utilization of, the genius of the place." Beatrix found a lot to admire and emulate in Mary Ward Dorr's garden- that the fashionable eulalia, lyme grass, if planted in a sheltered spot would survive the island winter; that a generous planting of hollyhocks and larkspur looked wonderful against the "solid background" of the arborvitae (Thuja occi- dentalis) hedge; that "splendid" Solidago sempervirens came from seed, and that garden varieties of other island natives, lilies (Lilium tigrinum and L. speciosum) and asters (Aster novae-angliae and A. ericoides) made splendid showings in the late summer garden. She noted a "pretty scarlet trumpet honeysuckle" over Mrs. Dorr's porch, and more of the planting around the house. She "[t]ried to get a Kodak of grouping of shrubs in front of Oldfarm. Two small round lilac bushes on either side of the front door, an Arbor-vitae standing back in a cor- ner made by the L, backed by two or three large white spruce. A large lilac by the kitchen turn and a Pyrus japonica [Chaenomeles] on the right of the ap- proach. Two magnolias out of key but a good Pinus mugo very effective. She had quickly learned to be critical of exotics in her island setting, as Mrs. Dorr's "unfortunate" weakness for magnolias made clear; further disapproval was cast on the garden of the Morrill family, at Redwood, farther south along the Shore Path from Reef Point. "I noticed how entirely out of place a couple of catalpas and a magnolia looked against a background of white and black spruce." But she also noted how attractive the veranda around the house could be when a low wall was built around the edge and nasturtiums were planted to flower over the wall and fall to ground level on the outside. When "the Canary-bird vine was planted with the nasturtiums" a lovely contrast was cre- ated between them and the vine's delicate green leaves of "fluttering grace" and its butterflylike flowers. 35 Another idea which caught her eye was a Clema- tis paniculata in full flower trained on a wire frame half-wreathed around a window. ] At Birch Point, the home of Bar Harbor's first wealthy summer resident, Alpheus Hardy (next door to the Mount Desert Reading Room, the elite men's club), Beatrix checked on old white birches being felled. She did ring counts-"as high as 60 on one" but it had a rotten three-inch heart; another also went up to over sixty and was healthy all the way through. She measured standing trees with a girth of three to four feet, four feet from the ground- very large specimens. And she acquired further sound practical knowledge. "Poa pratensis (Kentucky blue grass) makes the best turf for a lawn in this part of the country, though it takes three years for it to become thoroughly estab- Brown 3 42 so 1894 BEATRIX Beatrix was back at Holm Lea in February of the following year, for another The Gardening Life of exciting expedition with the Sargents, this time to Biltmore in North Car- olina, where Olmsted had been working miracles for George Washington Beatrix Jones Farrand Vanderbilt since 1888. The party, which included Olmsted, Mary Cadwalader 1894 Jones, and several others, traveled in Vanderbilt's private railroad car, the "Swannanoa," which carried them, via a length of private track, to the gates of Biltmore. From there it was a three-mile carriage drive, three "magical miles" through the ravines and wooded valleys ornamented with pools, waterfalls, and streams, of Olmsted's masterfully "natural" contrived and concealed ap- proach. Suddenly the visitors passed "with an abrupt transition into the enclo- sure of the trim, level, open, airy, spacious, thoroughly artificial Court"2 and thus into the overwhelming presence of Richard Morris Hunt's enormous château. Of this château, almost complete when Beatrix saw it, only superla- tives have been written: "The château is beginning to hum" wrote the archi- tect to his wife, "The mountains are just the right size and scale. "25 Henry James, a later visitor, wrote famously of the interior measuring by leagues; the main rooms were cathedral-like, and there were twenty bathrooms. Outside there were acres of gravel and lawn, formal pools, and four acres of walled gar- dens, all set on the sliced-off top of a mountain, affording a breathtaking view over fields, woods and hills to the Great Smoky Mountains. The main purpose of the trip was for Olmsted and Sargent to discuss the progress on Vanderbilt's great arboretum and tree nursery project, where it was planned to raise eleven million young specimens for American woodlands. Sargent had been spirited away from his beloved Arnold Arboretum to en- courage Vanderbilt, and his clever, Yale-educated forester Gifford Pinchot, into the management of hundreds of thousands of acres of the Biltmore land as America's first commercial forestry experiment. It was a cause close to his heart, and Olmsted's, in which they were both inspired by their friend George Perkins Marsh's call for the conservation of forests and soils; they knew only too well his warning in Man and Nature that one of the causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was a failure to look after their forests and soils. 26 The kindly Sargent had probably thought the expedition would interest Beatrix, but she might have arranged it all for herself, for George Vanderbilt was a summer resident of Bar Harbor (and Olmsted was working for him at his estate Point d'Acadie, on the coast south of Reef Point, next to the Dorrs' Oldfarm) as was the family of Gifford Pinchot. Her interest in the proceedings was made clear, for Olmsted remarked her presence rather grumpily to his nephew, John Charles Olmsted, at home in Brookline and that she was "in some way inclined to dabble in Landscape Architecture."27 Despite Olmsted's grumpiness, the following June, when Beatrix was next at Holm Lea, she was invited to visit and inspect the office at 99 Warren Street. Brown-4 Chapter 5 SOOD EARLY WORK AND A PLACE IN HER PROFESSION R light from the start Beatrix attracted attention, and she knew how to turn publicity to her own advantage. An early interview in the New York Sun is ti- tled "Miss Beatrix Jones's Vocation-She does landscape gardening of all kinds from the ground up." She was quoted upon a practical point: "I always wear my bicycle suit for business. It is conventional, quiet looking and is not in the way." There was no photograph, SO the story of over a dozen column inches con- cluded: "Miss Jones is 25 years old and comely. She is tall and slight, and her beauty is of the majestic kind that defies description. Although fond of tennis and golf, and in love with her profession, she yet finds time for society." She gave the interview at Reef Point in early October 1897. At the time E B D's her tally of jobs included draining a 25-acre swamp and putting it "in trim for cultivation," clearing a 40-acre forest plot in Bar Harbor and transforming it project "into a pleasing grove," and laying out the small cemetery in Seal Harbor The first of these jobs was for Mrs. William Bliss and the second was that found for her by Professor Sargent, perhaps for the Bostonian C. M. Perry at his summer home. The work at Seal Harbor cemetery included the design of a romantic timbered lych-gate in the English tradition, and a small tool house. Rather more significant were her early connections at the resort develop- ment of Tuxedo Park, an hour north of Manhattan by train. The development had been planned in the mid-1880s by James Smith Haring and the Boston landscape architect Ernest W. Bowditch, for Pierre Lorillard, in the Pic- turesque manner, making the most of the natural beauties of the hilly and wooded 7,000 acres. House plots had been carefully fitted into the contours around Tuxedo Lake and two smaller lakes, with large areas of woodland and [ 591 Brown-5 gardens around Bar Harbor itself, south to Great Head, with a day in Seal 161 Harbor and another in Northeast Harbor. For Beatrix it was both an honor and a harrowing experience. Naturally they saw Reef Point, where the "roses Transatlantic Fellows: and wild things naturalized" were particularly lovely according to one anony- mous Garden Club lady; and a short step away, on Mount Desert Street almost Dumbarton Oaks and opposite Saint Savior's Church, they found Miss Gertrude Sampson's enclosed Dartington Hall, and informal garden which Beatrix had been working on since 1927. The garden, SO near the center of the town, was a surprise-an enclosed lawn with 1931-37 an irregular border of annuals, a natural flowery meadow with a path leading into a pine grove. At Tanglewold on Kebo Street, one of the resort's most colorful houses, an elaborate timber-patterned "cottage," they saw Mrs. A. Murray Young's terraced garden which Beatrix had made since 1918 "to fit the steep hillside with as little disturbance as possible." The upper terrace had a formal fountain and provided "a brilliant foreground," presumably with annu- gate club 1934, als and perennials, to the view of the distant hills, framed with clipped thuyas. Lower terraces, one of peonies and iris, one of ferns, led to the woodland path, a brook, and a pool. Farther north, on Highbrook Road, they saw Miss McCormick's old Maine farmhouse, now enlarged but rambling, keeping its homely feeling. Working with the architect, Arthur McFarland, Beatrix had made a cottage garden for vegetables and flowers "where old-fashioned bor- ders of dahlias, delphiniums, and many-coloured annuals"28 grew in masses of color. Still farther north, off Eden Street on the way to Hull's Cove, was the Stotesburys' Wingwood House, which was much grander: this had been remodeled in 1925 into an eighty-room classical "cottage" with a large sea- facing terrace. The locals were amazed when the Stotesburys allegedly paid Beatrix $1,500 a tree to move in ten elms to surround the terrace, as well as juggle with a hundred big pines to make the spacious, parklike setting. Mrs. Stotesbury was reputed to "shift her plants around the ground twice a week" among other excesses (apparently sending out an expedition for alligators to make up a matching set of luggage) that make up Bar Harbor's glorious past 29-but the flowers were mostly in large containers! South from Bar Harbor the Garden Club saw two very different gardens, proving that for every "cottager" who brought their Long Island grandeur with them, there were two who planted to enhance the very different charac- ter of northern Maine At the Potter Palmers' Hare Forest on the road up to Schooner Head, the driveway had been carefully planned by Beatrix's friend, the conservationist George Dorr; Beatrix had added the natural planting along the drive and around the terrace which looked onto Frenchman's Bay. Farther a south was the wonderful Satterlee garden at Great Head, with its magical wooded dells leading to the sea, with paths through midsummer flowers. In Northeast Harbor they visited Mrs. Charlton Yarnall at The Birches on Sar- gent Drive, another terraced garden with a fabulous view across Somes Sound; Beatrix planted three terraces: one of shade-loving plants under birches, the second of perennials of pink, pale blue, and white, and the third of perennials 7/3/2019 A Patrician in the Landscape - The New York Times The New York Times ARCHIVES I 1995 A Patrician in the Landscape By ELEANOR DWIGHT MARCH 26, 1995 [Note: See DORRARCHIVE entry for About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times's print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems. Please send reports of such problems to archive_feedback@nytimes.com BEATRIXThe Gardening Life ofBeatrix Jones Farrand, 1872-1959.1 By Jane Brown.Illustrated. 252 pp. New York:Viking. $50. WHEN Beatrix Jones Farrand started designing gardens in the late 1890's, George Vanderbilt's Biltmore, the largest house in America, with its 35 acres of formal gardens designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, had just been completed in Asheville, N.C. In Newport, R.I., mansions almost as large were sproutino alono Bellevue Avenue and 9 Subscribe to The New York Times. SEE MY ARTICLES REMAINING 7/3/2019 A Patrician in the Landscape - The New York Times - look-alikes for castles, villas and English country houses had been built into the Berkshire Hills. Every great house needed its garden -- and its garden designer. With her own precocious talent, plus a push from her aunt Edith Wharton, the young Beatrix Jones (she did not marry until she was 41) soon obtained modest landscaping commissions to work on James J. Van Alen's Tudor castle, Wakehurst, at Newport, and on Giraud Foster's Bellefontaine and Emily Vanderbilt Sloane's Elm Court at Lenox. She had grown up in a privileged world: in addition to her aunt Edith's circle she had access to such good friends of her mother's as Henry James and Theodore Roosevelt. "Beatrix: The Gardening Life of Beatrix Jones Farrand, 1872-1959," a study of Farrand as a landscape gardener (she refused to call herself a landscape architect) is a handsome book with generous illustrations, photographs, garden plans and charming drawings of walls and ornaments. Jane Brown, an English garden historian who has written extensively about Gertrude Jekyll, sketches in the background against which Farrand worked. She gives us a Beatrix who was brought up in old New York, but put down her emotional roots in Bar Harbor, Me., where Reef Point, her parents' large summer house, looked out over Frenchman Bay. Her love of the Maine landscape provided solace for 9 Subscribe to The New York Times. SEE MY ARTICLES REMAINING 7/3/2019 A Patrician in the Landscape - The New York Times of the unlovable male characters in his sister Edith Wharton's novels. Beatrix's mother, who divorced him, was intellectual and independent, and wrote articles and books about women. As Ms. Brown emphasizes, it was in Maine that Farrand acquired her "landscape eye." Farrand's intense horticultural studies in the early 90's with Charles Sprague Sargent at Harvard's Arnold Arboretum gave her a foundation; a visit to the Columbian Exposition in Chicago followed, and in 1895 a tour of European gardens. Always making the most of her social connections, she met the important English landscape gardeners Gertrude Jekyll and William Robinson. Her career immediately blossomed with commissions in N 1896 on Mount Desert Island and at Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Soon she was helping to found the American Society of Landscape Architects, choosing the site for the Cathedral School for Girls in Washington, working for J. P. Morgan (and for both the first and the second of Woodrow Wilson's wives at the White House) and designing major plantings for Princeton and Yale. In the 20's and 30's she entered into the long, satisfying client/designer relationships that brought her great masterpieces to fruition -- with Abby Aldrich Rockefeller at the Eyrie at Seal Harbor, Me., and with Mildred Bliss at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington. In 1913, Beatrix Jones married Max Farrand, then chairman of the history department at Yale, who came to 9 Subscribe to The New York Times. SEE MY ARTICLES REMAINING 7/3/2019 A Patrician in the Landscape - The New York Times mid-1950's, after failing in her efforts to finance Reef Point as a nature study center in his memory, she sold her beloved property and retired to a farmhouse in nearby Salsbury Cove. Ms. Brown nicely traces the development of Farrand's artistic sensibility by analyzing her early diary, showing us her mentors, including Sargent, Jackson Thornton Dawson and Robinson: "It must be remembered that she was brought up to be perfectly at ease with distinguished older men." Ms. Brown gives many tantalizing descriptions of the designer's planting schemes. She suggests that Farrand dismantled the gardens at Reef Point and sent her collection of books and plans (including Jekyll's library) off to the College of Environmental Design at the University of California at Berkeley because Smith College treated the proposed gift of books rudely and the staff of Dumbarton Oaks was indifferent. Today, garden enthusiasts make pilgrimages to Farrand's few surviving creations, exquisite combinations of European classicism and American naturalism. They appreciate the talents of this woman, who was SO creative in her planting and SO adept at situating a garden in the landscape, whether in the Maine wilderness or on a difficult hill in Georgetown. Such visitors may have heard stories that have grown up around Farrand's memory, stories unmentioned by Ms. 9 Subscribe to The New York Times. SEE MY ARTICLES REMAINING 7/3/2019 A Patrician in the Landscape - The New York Times professional affairs from her bedroom in the mornings. Like her aunt she was a precise and demanding perfectionist. Stories are still told of the grande dame arriving in her chauffeur-driven car to visit a client. Businesslike and brusque, she set about interviewing the gardeners and dictating instructions to her secretary. She is said to have traveled across country in her own railroad car, making complicated arrangements for her retinue. And Farrand could be implacable. When Edith Wharton died and tried to leave the bulk of her estate, including her mother's trust, to her great friend Elisina Tyler, Farrand entered into an all-out legal battle with Tyler to frustrate her aunt's purpose. Ms. Brown tells us that as an Englishwoman and an outsider she "trod warily" in writing about Farrand. Perhaps too warily, for she has missed opportunities, particularly in failing to convey Farrand's vivid personality. Her text does not allow us to visualize Farrand, and we wish we got to hear her voice more often, as when Ms. Brown quotes her telling a reporter for The New York Sun in 1897: "I always wear my bicycle suit for business. It is conventional, quiet looking and is not in the way." Ms. Brown has described a great number of gardens, SO the reader is exposed to quantity but not to in-depth analysis of Farrand's art. Embedded in the text are short essays on her wild gardens, on her roses, on her opinion of 9 Subscribe to The New York Times. SEE MY ARTICLES REMAINING 7/3/2019 A Patrician in the Landscape - The New York Times talents come too rarely, SO that when she concludes that Farrand was "far, far more perceptive and talented a gardener than Gertrude Jekyll," although we may want to agree, we wish for more persuasive arguments. Ms. Brown's book is a happy addition to the Farrand studies that began in the early 1980's. Beside other good accounts by Farrand herself in the Reef Point Gardens Bulletins and her extraordinary plant book for Dumbarton Oaks, there are "Beatrix Farrand's American Landscapes" (1985) by Diana Balmori, Diane Kostial McGuire and Eleanor M. McPeck, and Patrick Chasse's definitive "Visitor's Guide to the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden" (1990). Ms. Brown's overview of Beatrix Jones Farrand's career is engrossing but still lacks the overall elegance of a Farrand landscape. A version of this review appears in print on March 26, 1995, on Page 726 of the National edition with the headline: A Patrician in the Landscape. © 2019 The New York Times Company 9 Subscribe to The New York Times. SEE MY ARTICLES REMAINING 1/27/18 Lady into Landscape Gardener: Beatrix Farrand's Early Years at the Arnold Arboretum Jane Brown One of America's great landscape gardeners, Beatrix Farrand was deeply influenced by Professor C. S. Sargent, the Arboretum's first director. For the whole of her long and successful refers to herself as "the old lady" whose mind career, Beatrix Farrand was consistently and works very slowly-are dated in the spring of loyally appreciative of the place she regarded 1953, just six years before her death. as her alma mater, the Arnold Arboretum. This well-documented relationship of her Her gratitude and affection shine through her later years will be the subject of a future public writings; from a piece she called "The Arnoldia article, but for the moment, I would Debt of Landscape Art to a Museum of Trees" like to concentrate upon how it all began.For for the Architectural Record of November my forthcoming book on Beatrix Farrand's life 1918 to her pieces for Arnoldia in 1949, and work, I have had to piece together much describing her work on the azalea border and more elusive evidence on how she came to her layout plan for Peters Hill. ² Her friendship study at the Arnold in the 1890s and what she with Professor Charles Sprague Sargent, her did there. She left no diaries or letters of that adored "Chief," who had taught her "by time, and her references to it were persistently precept and example," was maintained until vague, even to the drafting of what amounted the end of his life in 1927; and after that, she to her own obituary, for the Reef Point Bulle- conducted a lengthy and vigorous correspon- tin, where she mentioned "a fortunate meet- dence with Alfred Rehder and Karl Sax, and ing" (one of many in her life) with Mrs. especially with William Henry Judd, the Charles Sargent and how the Professor Arboretum's English propagator, who died in became interested in her love of plants She 1946. Judd, who had first come to the Arnold then became "the grateful guest" of the Sar- in 1913, was her closest contact after Sargent's gents, at which time the facilities of the death, and there was a rather sad irony in that Arboretum were thrown open to her. Thus, as Arnoldia of May 31, 1946,3 announced his she also wrote, her life was changed; it most sudden death from a heart attack at the same certainly was, for chance and circumstances time it made public Beatrix's appointment as had brought her into the realm of perhaps the consultant landscape architect. Beatrix's last only person, in the only place, where the res- surviving letters on Arboretum matters-she trictions imposed by her native society could A portrait photo of Beatrix Cadwalader Jones at her debut, circa 1890, the year she first met the Sargents. Reprinted courtesy of the College of Environmental Design Documents Collection, University of California, Berkeley. Amnldia 51, # 3 (Summer 1991) 3-10 - Pt 1 11 52,#1 (Winter 1992) 9-17-Pt2. 4 Beatrix Farrand be overcome, and she could be launched into walader Jones became busy with other things, the world of men as an independent profes- Beatrix took control of the garden and was sional woman. probably in charge of its progress by the time she was fifteen or sixteen. Family Connections Beatrix Jones was born into a rigid society of A Suitable Profession old-money New York in the 1870s, where it Given her passion for the Maine landscape was decreed that a lady's name only appeared and gardening, it seems likely that John Lam- in print to announce her engagement and her bert Cadwalader suggested that she should death. She was an only child, born on 19 June study the subject seriously; he could well have 1872, something over two years after the mar- been prompted by his friend Mariana riage of her parents, Frederic Rhinelander Griswold van Rensselaer's timely approval of Jones and Mary Cadwalader Rawle. Her father landscape gardening as a career for ladies. (who had a young sister who would grow up But the key to her decision was, as Beatrix to be the novelist Edith Wharton) was rich, wrote, her "fortunate meeting" with Mary Sar- fun-loving, and purposeless; her mother was gent. Beatrix was immediately attracted by lively, bookish, and used to the company of Mrs. Sargent's skill in botanical illustration; scholarly Philadelphia lawyers and soldiers in she was nearing completion of her set of the society from which she came. Mary had watercolors of the flowers, leaves, and fruit of probably married in haste, and she and Freddy each tree represented in Professor Sargent's soon discovered their deep incompatibilities, collection of the woods of America. In her SO that by the time Beatrix was ten her father turn, Mary Sargent probably enjoyed Beatrix's was virtually absent from her life. enthusiastic and knowledgeable chatter about Beatrix was highly intelligent and well edu- plants, which was in a lighter vein than the cated; she grew up to be a handsome young high-flown table talk of the Professor and his lady, of elegant bearing, always beautifully academic friends. Anyway, Beatrix Jones4 was turned out, but with an awesome briskness soon swept up into the comfortable and capa- of manner. This was probably a self-protective cious milieu of the Sargents house, Holm Lea, device, a result of her fatherlessness. She was where apparently the Professor too surrounded by her mother's friends, a appreciated her interest in plants. Her good predominantly female society with a sprin- looks and elegance were not wasted upon Sar- kling of eminent men, including John La gent, but of course she in turn was quite used Farge, John Singer Sargent, Francis Marion to distinguished gentlemen, and would not Crawford, and later Henry James, as well as have been shy or daunted by his stern gaze and Mary's dour and fastidious cousin, the lawyer the aloofness of his Boston soul. John Lambert Cadwalader. But of almost By the summer of 1893, the Sargents were equal influence as any person on Beatrix convinced of the seriousness of Beatrix's (except for her mother) was the place she loved interest in landscape gardening. Beatrix and most, Mount Desert Island and Bar Harbor in her mother Mary had visited Holm Lea en particular, where she spent her summers. route from New York to Maine (this became Beatrix explored every inch of the island, she a regular habit in later years) in June when the was an expert on its trees and wildflowers, and rhododendrons were at their best. The Sar- she sailed her catboat around its rocky shores. gents may have visited them at Reef Point At her home, "Reef Point" in Bar Harbor, she (this too became a regular event in later years), learned to garden with a sympathy for the but the Professor had most certainly soils and conditions of the island. She learned instructed Beatrix to make the most of her from her parents at first, but as Mary Cad- summer, to use her eyes, to observe good land- Beatrix Farrand 5 The pond at Professor Sargent's estate, Holm Lea, in Brookline, Massachusetts. Photographed in 1900 by Thomas Marr. scape effects and plant relationships and note she finds many good planting ideas, but she them down. Her summer flew by, as happy is noticeably critical of exotics on her island holidays are wont to do, but towards the end setting, including Mrs. Dorr's "unfortunate" of September she remembered that she weakness for magnolias. Her last holiday needed something to show her "Chief," and entries are made on the train as she leaves for bought a brand-new notebook. This was Boston to meet up with the Sargents, who had almost certainly not her first, but it was the promised to take her to the World's Colom- only one she kept as a treasured reminder of bian Exposition in Chicago, to see the what were to be some of the most momen- wonders of the fair, but especially the triumph tous days of her young life. of Olmsted's landscape setting. After a short rest at Holm Lea, Beatrix and the Sargents are Observing the Landscape bound for Chicago, where they arrive on The notebook begins on 10 October 1983 with October 19. Old an her comments on the landscape around Bar For a week she wandered around the Expo- Harbor; one of her favorite haunts is the Dorr sition, investigating details of design and family's Oldfarm at Compass Harbor, where planting, and noting them down; she was mys- GBD BF EW 6 Beatrix Farrand An aerial view of Beatrix Farrand's home, Reef Point, in Bar Hurbor, Maine. Reprinted courtesy of the College of Environmental Design Documents Collection, University of California, Berkeley. tified by the first Japanese bonsai that she saw, Beatrix returned to New York to continue but entranced by the mix of gardens and con- her reading, but her future was decided and trived wilderness on Olmsted's precious must have been talked about; the following wooded island. Being at the fair under the Sar- February (1894) she and her mother were in gents' wing taught Beatrix a great deal, but it the Sargents' party to visit Biltmore, which also brought her into the inner circle of her caused Olmsted to remark rather grumpily chosen profession. She was no longer on the that she was "inclined to dabble in Landscape outside, but having met SO many people and Architecture."6 This much-quoted slight re- heard so many conversations on the hard-won veals the depths of the difficulties Beatrix had triumph of the fair, she became one of the to overcome, and just how important Sargent's "few" who realized, as Sargent had thundered faith in her was to her eventual success. in Garden and Forest "that the harmony of Olmsted was on the summit of his fame, yet the scene and the perfection and convenience conscious of his failing energies; he had a of the whole scheme of arrangement were due punishing schedule of travels that spring of to the genius of one man, Frederick Law 1894, and was obsessed with the "exceptional" Olmsted." education of his son, Frederick, Jr., who, on Beatrix Farrand 7 the point of graduating from Harvard, was gathered interest with time, for the entrance being fitted to be his heir. No man, with to 99 Warren Street is still much the same as Olmsted's almost messianic fervor, could look she saw it. She describes the planting around kindly on a society lady who dared to dabble the house, noting some "badly arranged" in his precious profession. But, on Beatrix's shrubs and the clashing azalea flowers in side, was it not hard for her that her contem- bluish pink and bright orange. poraries, her equals in so many ways, Charles But she was really interested in the Olmsted Eliot, Henry Sargent Codman, and Frederick office, and she was allowed to see every aspect Olmsted, Jr., should be pampered, eased, and of the work, as her detailed notes reveal. She ushered through the surveying and field work, was shown, perhaps by the affable John the European travels, and the office experience Charles Olmsted, how design layouts and necessary to becoming a landscape architect? areas for planting were sketched on tracing She had to do it all on her own. It was this paper over the site surveys, and how planting imbalance that made Sargent's encourage- plans were made by reference to a card index, ment crucial. He was kindly, he had that Brah- which gave size, shape, availability, and min tendency to give a serious-minded required growing conditions for each plant. woman encouragement, and just perhaps, she The plants were keyed into the design by a appeared at the right moment, with her number. All she saw was of vital interest to brightness and enthusiasm, to fill the gap left Beatrix, and she carried all the ideas and by the death of his former protégé, Henry Sar- methods away with her for future reference. gent Codman, in early 1893. On the following Sunday, June 10, 1894, Beatrix probably never knew of Olmsted's Professor Sargent drove her to the Arboretum; slight, but the situation was clear enough; it she took this in her stride since for her to have was to affect her life greatly, as well as her a private tutorial was almost certainly not a later relationship with the American Society unique occasion, but it is the only excursion of Landscape Architects. She refused to call she recorded in detail: herself a landscape architect, always preferring the term gardener. On the way we stopped and looked at Mr. Parkman's collection of shrubs. It was lawfully dreary-house After the trip to Biltmore in February 1894, and grounds taken by the Park Commission, house she returned to Holm Lea in the summer for being torn down [Parkman had died the previous what was to be her longest stay; she studied year]. Only a year ago the grounds were under culti- at the Arboretum and was ushered around vation and now they look as if they had been deserted Brookline by Sargent (including a visit to H. for years, paths overgrown, and long grass springing up everywhere. St. Bruno's lily in full bloom-Azalea H. Hunnewell at Wellesley, and he was calendulacea still fine too, Magnolia macrophylla impressed by her knowledge and manner). On not flowering largest in the neighborhood. June 5, she faced up to her Waterloo, taking Aruncus spirea in bed quite handsome altho a lit- a chance to visit Olmsted's office (in his tle coarse Jamaica Pond is lovely-or at least must absence). She was allowed a thorough look have been lovely before the Parkway took it-Mr S. is trying to make the Commission give up the plan around the shrine she could never enter for the road along the shore in one of the loveliest professionally. Her notes were detailed: "The spots. entrance is quite charming, a lych gate In the Arboretum itself a great deal of work has covered with Euonymus radicans, both the been done, especially behind the building [the Hun- plain and variegated, and quite bushy on top. newell laboratory was completed in 1892] where the Magnolias are to begin. The road goes around a tiny island with shrubs planted on a high mound and com- Beatrix noted Magnolia parviflora M. pletely shutting out the gate. To the right the sieboldii) in bloom, though only a small bush, ground has been dug away making a little and Magnolia glauca (= M. virginiana), per- dell Her description goes on, and has fumed almost like a rose. Professor Sargent led 8 Beatrix Farrand An 1894 photograph of F. L. Olmsted's Brookline home and office, Fairstead. Beatrix Farrand visited Fairstead on June 5 of that year. Photograph courtesy of the National Park Service. her on to the roses-Rosa spinosissima in tum. Beatrix would have found him an bloom and also R. nitida, R. lucida, R. setigera immensely attractive personality, always will- multiflora, and the Austrian briar were all ing to answer her questions and explain what 1894 noted for future use. Other shrubs that caught he was doing. It seems likely that her later her eye were the hydrangeas, stewartia, Vibur- friendship with Chief Propagator Judd was num molle, and V. dentatum in bloom and founded on her earlier good relationship with Fothergilla gardenii, just beginning to fruit. Jackson Dawson. Sargent must have insisted-if Beatrix If Beatrix had acquired a foundation of good needed any bidding-that she attend J. G. plant knowledge from her visits to Holm Lea Jack's dendrology lectures, which he gave that and the Arboretum, especially in that sum- June; and being Beatrix, she would have made mer of 1894, she still needed to learn in other the most of every chance to learn from that ways. In the autumn she made arrangements remarkable character, the chief propagator and for private courses in technical drawing and Arboretum superintendent, Jackson Dawson. surveying from the teachers at Columbia's Dawson, a jovial, good-natured Yorkshireman, fledgling School of Architecture, and she resplendent each morning in a fresh boiled made plans for her very necessary European white shirt (on which he invariably wiped his study tour. plant labels), knew everyone who had any bus- This first important tour lasted for six iness among his precious plants in the Arbore- months, from March until October of 1895; Beatrix Farrand 9 she and her mother traveled alone (except for their lady's maid) but met old and new friends in many places, including Teddy and Edith Wharton. Beatrix wrote that Sargent exhorted her "to see all the gardens she could, and learn from all the great arts as all art is akin." He gave her introductions to the Jardin d'Essai in Algiers, where she studied subtropical plants, and to the Rovelli brothers who had a collec- tion of azaleas and rhododendrons near Milan. Charles Eliot was also very helpful, with good advice on parks and gardens he had seen in Paris and Berlin, giving her as well an in troduction to the "very kindly" Carl Bolle ai di his marvelous garden of trees on an island in the Tegel(Sargent may well have paved the way for her to meet the reigning triumvirate of English gardeners, William Robinson, Ger- tr de Jekyll and Theresa Earle, which she did, al. in one week in July.) Olmsted's advice to William Platt had included his opinion that the "fine and costly" Italian gardens had less to offer the young ndscape architect than the carefully ol served details of the everyday landscape and Portrait of Jackson Dawson, chief propagator at the CC mmon places. Beatrix, attuned by Holm Lea Arnold Arboretum, and a good friend of Beatrix inner-table conversations to the sensitivities Farrand. Photograph from the Arnold Arboretum Archives. of formal versus natural landscape tastes, ac opted right from this start her carefully ju dged position along the middle way, that scape gardener Henry Ernest Milner had deli- W IS to mark the whole of her career. She saw vered in London on "The Garden in Relation over twenty villa gardens in Italy, as well as to the House," which was really concerned the great formal gardens of Germany, France, with the architect in relation to the landscape an d England, but it is interesting to note that gardener. By this time also. Professor Sargent her first contribution to Garden and Forest had delighted her by finding her a little job, 1st (a id her first published piece of writing)7 was which she described as to do "some tree thin- or the merits of a vernacular stone bridge she ning and remodel a little planting on a garden ha d seen in the English Lake District. (She slope." By the following autumn, when she de signed very similar bridges for the woodland gave her first professional interview to the at Dumbarton Oaks over thirty years after- New York Sun (October 31, 1897), she could wards.) She pursued further legalitarian speak with a breezy, though conscientious interests in city parks on her return, and it confidence of her work-draining a 25-acre was her ideas for these that brought her to the swamp, clearing a 40-acre forest plot in Bar no tice of Samuel Parsons and eventually the Harbor and transforming it "into a pleasing mbryonic American Society of Landscape grove," laying out a cemetery at Seal Harbor, chitects. as well as more garden work in Bar Harbor and In the April 7, 1897 issue of Garden and the landscaping of the entrance to Tuxedo Fc rest, she wrote about a paper that the land- Park in New York State-these last two jobs 10 Beatrix Farrand The bridge over the River Kent at Levens Hall, from Garden and Forest, 1896 (vol. 9, no. 25). In her first published article, Beatrix Jones described the bridge this way: "The simple lines and quiet color of this ivy-draped bridge in Westmoreland are what make it satisfying to the eye and an added charm to the stream; it is made from the stone of the country, and the native plants grow about it as familiarly as though it were a boulder playfully deposited there by nature in the ice age." being current. The Sun reporter noted her long he also opened up for her his living textbook box full of plans, the three hundred books on of shrubs and trees, her professional stock in her subject, and asked if landscape gardening trade. was profitable, and could a young woman afford to marry on it? Beatrix laughed as she Endnotes replied that "she did not think a young woman Vol. 44 (5). 407. dedicated to her profession could afford to 2 Arnoldia 9 (2): 6-7, Vol. 9 (9) 38-43. marry at all." 3 Vol. 6 (4): 5. 4 Miss Jones, "twenty-five years old and Beatrix married Max Farrand in 1913. 5 comely" was well on her way, to a full and May 3, 1893, editorial. 6 Laura Wood Roper, FLO: A Biography of Frederick busy life and a professional reputation for fine Law Olmsted, John Hopkins, 1973, p. 455. work that was truly deserved. Beatrix, whose 7 Garden and Forest, January 15, 1896. honesty was one of her most engaging fea- 8 E. H. Wilson, quoted in A Reunion of Trees, by S.A. tures, never ever forgot that she owed SO much Spongberg, Harvard U. Press, 1990. to that "kindliest of autocrats,"8 her "Chief" Charles Sprague Sargent and his generously helping her over SO many of the professional Jane Brown studied landscape design, but, as she says, hurdles that time and society placed in her "happily diverted to writing." She IS a prolific writer on the subject of garden history and design, and is currently way. Probably we shall never now know the working on a biography of Beatrix Farrand, from which full extent of his kindnesses. And, of course, the above article is extracted. The Lady as Landscape Gardener: Beatrix Farrand at the Arnold Arboretum, Part 2 Jane Brown "Your trust in my training is the greatest honor of my fifty years of active practice." -Beatrix Farrand to Dr. Paul C. Mangelsdorf, May 15, 1946, on her appointment as Consultant Landscape Gardener to the Arboretum Having launched the young Beatrix Jones on illuminated by Mildred Bliss at the very start her career in the late 1890s, Professor Charles of the commission for Dumbarton Oaks: hav- Sprague Sargent, her "Chief" as she called ing put forward all her design ideas, Beatrix him, was a continuing benefactor in her was keen to make a brave start and wrote to progress. Beatrix and her mother, Mary Cad- Mrs. Bliss, sending photographs of three walader Jones, invariably visited Holm Lea for cedars, which she could obtain from the the rhododendron parties each June, on their Arboretum for $300 each for digging and pack- annual northward migration from New York ing. Mrs. Bliss replied promptly in favor of the to summer in Bar Harbor. (Beatrix, in her turn, cedars, noting that if "Mr. Sargent loves you most frequently used the hybrids connected enough to part with them," then go ahead. ² with her friends, Mrs. C. S. Sargent, Ignatius When Charles Sargent died, aged eighty-five Sargent, and Louisa Hunnewell in plantings and still working, in March 1927, Beatrix was for her clients.) The Professor never failed, it about to embark on a major diversion from seemed, to give her a discreet good recommen- her life's pattern because of Max Farrand's dation where he could, and even gave her appointment as Director of the Henry E. Hun- Christmas presents of significance; in 1911 it tington Library at San Marino, California. was Wilhelm Miller's What England Can From then on the Farrands' lives were divided Teach Us About Gardening, in which Holm basically into winters in California and sum- Lea was much praised, and where Beatrix mers at Bar Harbor, though much of Beatrix's found the corroboration for many of her own time was taken in long train journeys to keep opinions. The Sargents, loving her, were her scattered commissions in Chicago, Long doubtless overjoyed, as were her other friends, Island, Washington, D.C., and at Yale in order. by her happy marriage to the historian Max She had little time for her old haunts, except Farrand in December 1913, and though the for a brief call on Alice Sargent at Holm Lea pattern of her life changed, she worked as hard to design a new trellis for the house walls. as ever, and still paid frequent visits to the Connections with the Arboretum were Arnold Arboretum, with her notebook, to maintained through Susan Delano McKelvey3 refresh her knowledge of plants for a new com- and Chief Propagator William Henry Judd.4 It mission or situation. The relationship was to these two people that she turned for between Beatrix and her Professor was aptly help when she agreed to her longest-distance 10 Beatrix Farrand commission of all, to work for Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst (the former Dorothy Whit- ney Straight) at Dartington Hall in Devon, England, in 1932. She needed to renew English contacts, SO William Judd (who had been trained at Kew and was secretary to the Kew Gardeners of America) introduced her to Sir Arthur Hill, then Kew's director, and Mrs. McKelvey paved her way to the doyen of English plantsmen, W. Bean, who was work- ing on the third and final volume of Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles (1933), fol- lowing his retirement from the Royal Botanic Garden. Reef Point The contacts worked well and Beatrix was grateful. Susan McKelvey became a frequent visitor to the Farrands' Bar Harbor home, Reef Point, and she rarely arrived empty-handed. Many varieties of clematis and lonicera went from the Arboretum to Reef Point, where their progress in that northerly and sea-girt habitat was eagerly reported. William Judd went fre- quently to Reef Point, but just as often across the country to the Huntington gardens, where Beatrix Farrand in her late sixties, C. 1937. Reprinted there were not only the exotic delights of the with permission from the Princeton University cactus garden, but also other visiting experts Library. for entertainment. Beatrix greatly enjoyed put- ting her plant-expert friends together, and more devoted to where they felt really at introducing one to another, and leaving them home, at Reef Point. They set up the Reef to enjoy their private worlds: during the thir- Point Gardens Corporation in 1939, with Mrs. ties Judd helped her to educate and entertain McKelvey as a member, to carry for rward their two head gardeners from Dartington Hall for plans to turn their home and garden into an whom she arranged grand tours, as well as educational center for people interested in John Murray from Yale Botanical Garden and every kind of gardening. The prime objects various park superintendents from New were to demonstrate "what outdoor beauty Haven. The latter she felt were "much in can contribute to those who have the interest need" of Judd's skill and help, and in general and perception that can be influenced by trees it seems clear that if she could have dis- and flowers and open air composition." To patched every head gardener and grounds these ends they set about the reorganization superintendent (let alone a few of the of the garden and, most importantly, the nam- architects!) that she encountered to the ing and recording of the plants. It was soon Arboretum for enlightenment and inspiration, revealed that, in several aspects of the garden, her working life would have been a much the educated but mainly instinctive acquisi- smoother path. tions of the years had grown into interesting By the end of the 1930s (Beatrix was sixty- collections, especially for a garden in eastern five in 1937), the Farrands' lives became more Maine, of rhododendrons and azaleas, climb- Beatrix Farrand 11 ing plants on the house, and single-flowered a "dud" plant. In "Climbing Plants in Eastern hybrid tea roses. Thrown back into the puz- Maine" she writes: "This species of the Celas- zles of identification and nomenclature, trus family was planted on the southeast Beatrix naturally returned to the sure ground corner of the house, and started to grow with of her associations with the Arnold. Perhaps rampant cheerfulness. Its sweetly scented to smooth her path, she wrote to Dr. Alfred trusses of tiny flowers are often nearly three Rehder on 25 June 1940 in her characteristi- feet long, and in July the whole side of the cally modest vein: "You have doubtless forgot- house where it grows is as murmurous with ten an old acquaintance who used to see you bees as any English lime-tree walk." The other when she was occasionally at the Arboretum success story was the Japanese hydrangea- with her " chief Professor Sargent," but she vine, Schizophragma hydrangeoides, sent wanted to thank him for his Manual of Cul- from the Arnold on October 9, 1931: this grew tivated Trees and Shrubs, which had given "so marvelously up to the second-floor windows much aid to a working landscape gardener" on the north corner of the garden house, only over the years. The occasion was her receipt outdone in magnificence by two big Hydran- of a revised edition.6 Dr. Rehder, of course, had gea petiolaris, which clambered to more than not forgotten her but chided, "when Professor thirty feet. Sargent was still with us, you used to come In the early 1940s, Reef Point's garden much more frequently" and hoped she would flowered as its makers intended; both Farrands return to the Arboretum soon.7 worked very hard for their project, our "little Beatrix took the opportunity, at least by let- horticultural foundation," as Beatrix described ter, and tackled Chief Propagator Judd on the it to William Judd in July 1942. "You may like identification of her loniceras, which he did; to know," she continued, "that already at this they were both pleased with her Lonicera early season we are sure that more than 300 tragophylla, the Wilson introduction, with people have visited the garden" and as she dic- large butter-yellow heads of flowers, which tated the letter she could see more people had thrived since coming from the Arbore- wandering around. 9 Both Farrands were now tum. The naming process went on through entirely devoted to this dream project, but Reef Point's clematis, some pears, apples, bar- within a very short time Max Farrand's poor berries and hemlocks, sempervivums and health marred their happiness. For his last alpines. Soon a formal arrangement to pay year Beatrix worked doubly hard to achieve Judd's expenses was made, and the Arboretum their plans for the education center and the was also offered, in return, any cuttings that library, and yet to keep the seriousness of his might be wanted, as long as specific instruc- illness from him. When he died, in June 1945, tions were sent as to how to take them and just two days before her seventy-third birth- how to pack them. The rare Decaisnea far- day, she was both exhausted and stunned. The gesii, with remarkable metallic blue pods was only thing she could do was to carry on, with offered, and a couple of little Clematis tan- now a kind of obsessive energy devoted to gutica obtusiuscula were accepted. fulfilling Max's hopes and plans. William Judd must have been a little per- The Arnold Connection turbed to find a letter from her SO soon, dic- The record of plants sent from the Arnold to tated the day after Max's death, at the Reef Point is by no means complete, but there moment the announcement appeared in the seemed to be two particularly successful Boston Herald, asking him to identify her Arnold "children." A docket dated May 12, rhododendrons. Furthermore, she had already 1924, lists the Tripterygium regelii, which organized the cutting and packing of over Professor Sargent sent, telling Beatrix that sixty flower heads, and almost immediately Reef Point was most welcome to it as it was these were tumbling out onto the laboratory Torch azaleas (Rhododendron obtusum var. kaempfery growing on Bussey Hill in 1928. This picture accompanied Beatrix Farrand's article on the Arboretum that appeared in Arnoldia in 1946. Photo by J. Horace McFarland Co. From the Arnold Arboretum Archives. table. Judd, Dr. Rehder, and Donald Wyman She knew that she was being ungracious, dropped all they were doing, and prepared a and "a nuisance to my friends" but it was her list of names that was sent to her by return grief and desperation that made her so; for- mail. She was not very satisfied; she queried tunately, within a month she had resumed her many of their attributions, and sent another appreciation of the "kind and helpful" Wil- twenty-five blooms. In all they identified more liam Judd and was hoping he would be her than eighty specimens, mostly the species welcome guest later in the summer. calendulaceum, japonicum, myrtifolium, and arborescens, with some Ghent and Fortunei A Major Appointment hybrids, plus the cultivars 'Boule de Neige, The following spring she was both surprised Bijou des Amateurs, 'Louisa Hunnewell, and and delighted to be appointed as Consultant 'Lady Armstrong. Even so, she was forced to Landscape Gardener to the Arboretum. "Your admit that Reef Point might need a real trust in my training is the greatest honor of rhododendron expert, "so-called." my fifty years of active practice," she wrote to Beatrix Farrand 13 Dr. Paul C. Mangelsdorf. 10 She accepted "in much of a "tidal wave." Within a week Man- great humility of spirit" and with the "hope" gelsdorf had replied that Donald Wyman, who that her colleagues would not be disap- was Curator of the Living Collections, had all pointed; she looked forward to working with the authority required to make decisions Judd and Dr. Wyman. However, it was not to about moving plants as necessary, which be, for a few days later William Judd died of appeared a carte blanche to proceed. Donald a heart attack. The Arnoldia of June 7, 1946, Wyman, whom Beatrix had found "frosty" at paid tribute to him, and in the same issue, first, had "thawed" considerably towards her, Beatrix's appointment was announced. and they were getting on well, particularly There was a justice in that her last impor- when he visited her at Reef Point for discus- tant commission was at the place where she sions. The result was their list of twenty-three had started her career, but it was perhaps sur- landscape problems needing immediate prising that an almost seventy-five-year-old attention. lady should start striding around the Arbore- Surveys, plans, and discussions had taken tum, measuring taking notes, and asking per- half of her first year as consultant. Arnoldia tinent questions. She brought in an assistant, of November 1, 1946, printed her draft paper Robert W. Pattersom an architect and Tand- on her approach to the design problems, scape architect from Bar Harbor, 11 to do the which was a classic summation of landscape strenuous work, but she also warned Dr. Man- variabilities: time, soil depletion, a deteriora- gelsdorf, "You will need patience and under- tion of soil quality in some places, new plant standing of physical limitations of age which introductions, visitor problems, changes in are most irksome to me, but which must be taste, and particularly the devastating hurri- recognized."12 cane of September 21, 1938, had all taken their No such limitations seemed evident, for toll on Olmsted's original design for Sargent's within two months of her appointment, that conception. It seemed clear that one of the is, on 12 July 1946, she was writing to Dr. reasons for Beatrix Farrand's appointment as Mangelsdorf that Dr. Wyman, Patterson, and consultant was just that she was one of the herself were in "hearty agreement on the main few people around who could actually remem- points." These points were no timid tinker- ber what Sargent said he was trying to do, and ings, but recommendations for major revi- certainly her loyalty to the Professor was sions to the appearance of the Arboretum. unshakable. She concluded, "Old friends of "Project One" advocated a remodeling of the the Arboretum may feel aggrieved in seeing planting at the main entrance, around the some of the plantations altered, but they will Hunnewell building, and at the Forest Hills be less distressed when they realize that these entrance; a long-term plan for Hemlock Hill; very alterations are in the truest sense of the and a revision of the planting on Bussey Hill. word restorations, as they are intended to "Project Two" envisaged the removal of dupli- restore the design to the original conception cates, and aged and outworn plants through- of the great botanist and artist who was its out the collections, and "Project Three" was first director."14 for the establishment of a 25- to 40-acre nurs- She must have been busy with frequent ery outside the Arboretum. Immediate visits to the Arnold for two and a half years, approval was sought for these recommenda- though no drawings or correspondence of tions, but Peter's Hill, the marsh at the main work in progress appears to have survived. Her entrance, and a planned watering system for first descriptive report of the work she had the whole Arboretum also required urgent supervised appeared in Arnoldia of April 15, consideration. She felt in a certain "psycho- 1949. This elegant piece, "The Azalea logical fog" as to how to obtain decisions or Border," is a gem of landscape writing, beau- actions, and hoped her report was not too tifully balanced in its treatment of the botan- 14 Beatrix Farrand Beatrix Farrand's plan for the azalea border along Meadow Road. From the Arnold Arboretum Archives. ical and visual aspects of planting design. The Then came the early-flowering deciduous accompanying plan was deceptively simple, rhododendrons ("the crinkled petals of for she and her colleagues at the Arboretum mucronulatum, when they first appear, look had achieved far more than just a "border." The as though they had been ill packed during the land opposite the Hunnewell building, winter in a small valise"), keeping the lavender between Meadow Road and the marsh, had and purply shades separated from the pinks been cleared as a home for the family by "islands and tufts of shadbush, Labrador tea Ericaceae, a family of "distinction and and leatherleaf with huckleberries and tall elegance from the flat and fragrant mats blueberries. The rhododendrons progressed of mayflower to the tall rhododendrons and through American natives and Chinese sourwoods." 16 Loads of peat had been imported schlippenbachiis with Enkianthus and "good and great care taken to place lovers of the Phellodendrons" as well as old sumacs, to damp places just where they could keep wet separate species from hybrids and pinks from feet, but the design priorities had also been oranges and scarlets. Once these had all set- carefully interwoven with the planting: tled, "further little tufts and wisps of the "Immediately inside the entrance the quiet smaller Ericaceae will be tucked into the bays open view over the marsh is maintained by and hollows" and the grass path on the marsh low ground-hugging shrubs like bearberry, low side would be made. 18 blueberry and pachistima, ending in a higher In the autumn of 1949, 19 Beatrix explained mass after the first vista has been enjoyed! her designs for Peter's Hill, where Professor Beatrix Farrand 15 A view of Meadow Road on 27 May 1950, with pinkshell azaleas and a flowering dogwood in bloom. From the Archives of the Arnold Arboretum. Sargent's thorns had become a thicket and a best and very considerable skills, but she was fire hazard. Her plan showed how beautifully still keen to do more: "It looks as though our the plantations of Crataegus and Malus, the next big job were the rearrangement of the walks, and open glades would flow with the shrubs in the present shrub collecting area," grain of the hill form, while the grove of native she wrote to Dr. Karl Sax, the new Director, oaks and some old conifers on the west slopes on November 9, 1949. 20 She was full of plans were carefully saved. The very top of the hill, for herself and Donald Wyman to work on this a typical New England knoll, was to be kept area through the winter, and she was to come open for its view of Boston "with radiating at the end of the month and discuss it all with vistas.") them. Her plan was prepared but never carried out, and her correspondence ceases. What The Final Years happened is not entirely clear: perhaps By the time her piece on Peter's Hill appeared, Donald Wyman, boosted by the publication Beatrix was well into her fourth year as the of Shrubs and Vines for American Gardens Arboretum's consultant (at a maximum of in 1949 and Trees for American Gardens in $2,000 a year, though what she actually 1951, felt he should be able to arrange his own charged is not known). She had given of her collections, or perhaps Dr. Sax was over- 16 Beatrix Farrand whelmed by the mounting controversy over Arnold Arboretum by some splendid speci- moving the library. herbarium. and some of mens of "her" Forsythia, 22 a tetraploid hybrid the Arboretum's staff to the new building in from 'Arnold Giant' raised in 1944, with mag- Cambridge. Another clue might lie in the nificently rich, deep-yellow flowers, and- constant reassurances and provisos with perhaps "an upright and vigorous" growth which she had had to package every move SO habit. far, in deference to the "old friends" of the Arnold who wanted nothing changed. 21 Troub- Acknowledgments led times were ahead for the Arboretum, but I am particularly grateful to Sheila Connor, Librarian of it seems sad that its distinguished landscape the Arnold Arboretum, for help with this part of my consultant was the first casualty. research on Beatrix Farrand. And after all, Beatrix Farrand was eighty in I Miller, W. 1911. What England Can Teach Us About 1952. She had to face the bitter truth that her Gardening. New York Doubleday. beloved Reef Point Gardens, the "little hor- 2 Letter from Mildred Bliss to Beatrix Farrand, 14 April ticultural institution" she had set up with her 1924, Dumbarton Oaks Garden Library. 3 Schofield, E. A. 1987. A life redeemed: Susan Delano husband, could not be maintained. In 1955 McKelvey and the Arnold Arboretum. Arnoldia 47 (4): she took steps to dismantle everything they 9-23. had created, even the home which she had 4 William Henry Judd, 1888-1946; see Arnoldia 6(6): known since she was ten years old. That ele- 25-28. 5 ment of desperation, SO evident in her actions Reef Point Gardens Bulletin Vol. 1, No. 1, August 1946. Reef Point Gardens Collection, Documents Collec- immediately after Max Farrand's death, reas- tion, College of Environmental Design, University of serted itself in her final acts. She disposed of California, Berkeley. her plants, destroyed her house and garden, Rehder, A. 1940. Manual of Cultivated Trees and and gave her life's working drawings (together Shrubs Hardy in North America, 2nd ed. New York: Masmillon. with those of Gertrude jckyll), her collection 7 Alfred Rehder to Beatrix Farrand, 27 June 1940, Arnold of prints and library of 2,700 books (includ- Arboretum Archives. ing many rare herbals, floras, and gardening 8 Farrand, B. 1954. Climbing plants in eastern Maine. books) to the Department of Landscape Plants and Gardens 10(1): 40-44. Architecture at the University of California's 9 There were 2,000 visitors to Reef Point in the sum- Berkeley campus. There are rational reasons mer of 1945, and the total number after its closure in 1955 was many times that. for this course of events, but questions persist: 10 Beatrix Farrand to Paul C Mangelsdorf at the Insti- if Beatrix Farrand's appointment as the tute for Research in General Plant Morphology, Har- Arnold's landscape consultant had not ended vard University, 15 May 1946, Arnold Arboretum SO ignominiously, would it not have been per- Archives. 11 Robert W. Patterson's fees were to be included in her fectly natural for the Arnold to have had her own allowance of $2,000 per year. collections? And if the Arnold and Harvard 12 Farrand to Mangelsdorf, 15 May 1946, Arnold Arbore- had not been SO embroiled in the controversy tum Archives. over the Jamaica Plain library and herbarium, 13 Farrand to Mangelsdorf, 12 July 1946, Arnold Arbore- should they not have been duty bound to con- tum Archives. The nursery was part of the use pro- serve her legacy in its natural habitat 4or the posed for the Case Estates, which had been given to the Arboretum in 1942 saddest thing was that in sending her legacy 14 Arnoldia 6(10): 45-48, 1946. to California she had to flout the abiding rule 15 Arnoldia 9(2): 6-7, 1949. of her landscape life-that of the fitness of any 16 Ibid., p. 6. 17 work for its setting. It was the rule that Ibid. 18 Charles Sprague Sargent had taught her. Ibid., p. 7. 19 Arnoldia 9(9) 38-43, 1949. Now, on the 120th anniversary of her birth, 20 Beatrix Farrand to Karl Sax, 9 November 1949, Arnold Beatrix Farrand's name is perpetuated at the Arboretum Archives. Beatrix Farrand 17 21 Beatrix had always conscientiously dealt with the "old friends" of the Arboretum who were shocked at her changes. In 1947, Dr. Sax asked her what she thought about the idea of forming a Friends' Association-she agreed and sent names of subscribers, adding, "What do you hope people will subscribe, $10, $100, or $1,000 a year?" Farrand to Sax, 20 August 1947, Arnold Abore- tum Archives. 22 The specimens of Forsythia Beatrix Farrand' were located and identified for me one fine afternoon in 1991 by Michael Dirr, author of Manual of Woody Landscape Plants (Champaign, Ill : Stipes) Jane Brown is a well-known writer on the history of land- scape gardening The information in this article is based on her forthcoming book on Beatrix Farrand's life and work, scheduled to be published by Viking in the spring of 1993 FARRAND, BEATRIX JONES (1872-1959) landscape gardener Eleanor M. ucPeck. ls, though ds, had a they were Beatrix Jones Farrand, one of the finest landscape archi- Street. Working initially within the immediate circle of experience tects of her generation, was a charter member of the family friends, she received her first major commission ennial gar- ell of Vic- American Society of Landscape Architects. Although that same year from William Garrison of Tuxedo, New displays of active in the ASLA throughout her long and distin- York. In 1899, Farrand joined ten other distinguished perennial guished career, she always referred to herself as a "land- professionals to establish the American Society of Land- scape gardener." Robert Patterson, a close professional scape Architects. She was the only woman among the ond, Ely's associate, said that Farrand thought the word "architect" founders. permission "should be left to the designer of buildings." Farrand's earliest designs were formal in character behavior sses in the She was born in New York City, the only child of but reflected the influence of William Robinson, the us growth Mary Cadwalader Rawle and Frederick Rhinelander English landscape architect and author of The Wild Gar- ly, that Ely Jones, who separated in 1887 and divorced in 1896. Far- den (1881). She also shared with Gertrude Jekyll, the cel- to begin to rand's early life cannot have been entirely happy, but ebrated contemporary British landscape gardener, a subtle d came to neither was it dull. Tutored at home, as many young girls and harmonious approach to color based on Impressionist of her social class were, she often traveled abroad with theory. Robert Patterson, her lifelong associate, later wrote phenome- her mother and with her father's sister, Edith Wharton. that Farrand's work had a "freedom of scale, a subtle soft- servers. Her mother, in response to reduced financial circum- ness of line and an unobtrusive asymmetry." Her designs stances, acted as part-time literary agent for her sister-in- combined horticultural impressionism and the best ele- rden Book law and kept within her immediate circle of friends ments of classical European gardening. dler. New some of the best literary and artistic minds of the period Unfortunately, none of Farrand's earliest gardens an's Hardy including Brooks and Henry Adams, Henry James, and survives, although evidence of her approach may be ng account John La Farge. Farrand's uncle, John Lambert Cad- gleaned from drawings preserved at the University of ten in the walader, a distinguished lawyer and a founder of the fruit, veg- New York Public Library, is said to have recognized in white pho- his niece an early talent for landscape design and an "indomitable will." He later remarked, "Let her be a gar- dener or for that matter anything she wants to be. What er Garden. she wishes to do will be well done." 'he first six Farrand first planned a career in music, but the deci- or schemes, sive moment with respect to her ultimate choice of pro- t remedies, fession probably occurred in 1892, when by her own "The Wild account"a fortunate meeting with Mary Sargent [wife of ve plants in Charles Sprague Sargent*] changed the course of a ibes plants young woman's life." Soon after this meeting Farrand tes, 24 full- came to live for several months at Holm Lea, the Sar- 62 black- gents' estate at Brookline, Massachusetts. During this period, Farrand studied horticulture and the basic prin- arden. Illus- ciples of landscape design under Sargent at the Arnold rk: Macmil- 2 Arboretum. Although she later developed her own phi- to make a losophy of design, she always followed Sargent's sound ials but in- advice "to make the plan fit the ground and not twist the 1 directions ground to fit the plan." It was Sargent who encouraged -and-white Farrand to become a professional. garden. After a European garden tour in 1895, Farrand re- turned to New York City and studied civil engineering with private tutors. A year later she opened a landscape Beatrix Jones Farrand. Courtesy Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for architecture office in her mother's house on East 11th Harvard University. 118 PIONEERS OF AMERICAN LANDSCAPE DESIGN North Vista, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C., 1992. Photo Elizabeth K. Meyer. California. Several major projects executed after her and Robert Woods Bliss what had been a farm into one of marriage to Max Farrand in 1913, including the coun- the most imaginative gardens in this country. The entire try estate of Willard Straight in Old Westbury, New composition reflects her clear understanding of the topo- York, have been destroyed. However, one of Farrand's graphic subtleties of the site. Lending complexity to the most successful gardens, designed for Abby Aldrich whole is the principle of asymmetry. The formal Georgian Rockefeller in Seal Harbor, Maine (1925-1950), is Revival house was placed deliberately off-axis, with its still well preserved and maintained by the Rockefeller principal terraces extending to the east and descending to family. informal wooded areas below. Dumbarton Oaks is every- Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., is Farrand's where marked by a richness of architectural detail, an finest surviving work. Beginning in 1921 and over the next imaginative choice of materials, delicacy, and restraint- twenty-six years, Farrand transformed for clients Mildred qualities associated with all of Farrand's best work. Prunus allée, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C., 1999. Photo Elizabeth K. Meyer. BEATRIX JONES FARRAND 119 Princeton University campus, Princeton, ne of New Jersey. Photo Alan Ward. entire topo- Among her private clients Farrand gained a reputa- professional achievement; emphasis on her major work 5 the tion for thoroughness and certainty of approach. This rep- including Dumbarton Oaks and the Rockefeller gar- rgian utation also extended to her campus work, for, unlike den in Seal Harbor, Maine, as well as her plans for sev- h its many of her female colleagues, Farrand secured a large eral universities including Princeton, Yale, and Chicago. ng to number of commissions outside the residential sector. McPeck, Eleanor M. "Beatrix Jones Farrand." In Notable very- Beginning in 1916, she designed the graduate college gar- 1, an American Women, ed. Edward T. James et al. Cam- dens at Princeton University. At Yale, between 1922 and nt- bridge: Harvard University Press, 1980. Concise sum- 1945, she designed the Memorial Quadrangle, Silliman mary of Farrand's professional career with valuable College Quadrangle, and the Marsh Botanical Garden. bibliography and listing of archival sources. Her other campus commissions include those for the Uni- versity of Chicago (1919-1936) and Vassar (1926-1927), McPeck, Eleanor M. "Beatrix Jones Farrand, The Forma- Hamilton (1924), and Oberlin (1939-1946) colleges. tive Years." In Beatrix Farrand: Fifty Years of Landscape Farrand devoted her final years to the creation of Architecture, ed. Diane Kostial McGuire and Lois Reef Point Gardens in Bar Harbor, Maine, a project she Fern. Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Trustees and her husband had begun in 1937. Designed for both for Harvard University, 1982. Summary of Farrand's scholarly and experimental purposes, the project ulti- early years and education as well as account of Euro- mately included an extensive library, a test garden of pean travel and early professional work. native flora, and a herbarium. In 1955, Farrand, concerned The Department of Landscape Architecture, Documents about the survival of Reef Point, transferred the contents Collection, at the University of California, Berkeley, of her library and the herbarium, as well as professional holds Farrand's archive of correspondence, land sur- plans and correspondence, to the University of California veys, and garden plans as well as her extensive private at Berkeley. She died at Bar Harbor four years later. library of books on architecture and gardening. Dum- barton Oaks maintains its own collection, with the Trustees of Harvard University, of photographs, plans, Balmori, Diana, Diane Kostial McGuire, and Eleanor M. and reports from Farrand's more than twenty-year McPeck. Beatrix Farrand's American Landscapes: Her relationship with the gardens. Gardens and Campuses. Sagaponack, N.Y.: Sagapress, 1985. Richly illustrated book documenting Farrand's Eleanor M. McPeck At the end of the foreword in the Visitors Book the Piscataqua Garden Club says: We are sorry the time to be spent with us is so short, but Mrs. Bulkley then said: "Since we last met we have sustained a loss in we hope that what you see as a group may bring you back as individuals." our immediate ranks which has saddened us, Mrs. John Sherwin, for many To this courteous wish we reply by thanking our hostesses for their many years President of the Garden Club of Cleveland, and the third Vice- kindnesses, telling them of our appreciation of what they have showed us President of the GARDEN CLUB OF AMERICA, died a short time ago. I am of the three-hundred years of New England's history," and assuring sure it is your wish, as it is my own, that we rise in silent tribute to her them that we too share the hope that we may somehow, some day, come back memory." to York Harbor. Mrs. Bulkley then called upon the President of the Garden Club of Mt. Desert, Mrs. Gilbert Montague, who in extending a welcome to the visitors said: "It gives me much pleasure to extend to you officially what Note: I hope you feel personally, and that is our very warm welcome. We are the farthest east of any Club in the United States, and usually, owing to our geographical location, pretty well out to sea. We have a climate like New The Garden Club of York and Boston in winter, not much colder; this year, however, the ther- mometer went to forty below zero and stayed there,-it took most of the America meets on vegetation with it. Of course there is always an 'exceptional' year, I realize that. But I hope that you will enjoy your stay here today and tomorrow, and come back to us very often." This was greeted with applause. MDI. A description The roll call was then read by Mrs. Robert Fife; ninety-three Clubs were represented, ten Clubs regretted their inability to attend. of activities and After a motion that the reading of the minutes of the last Council be waived, the topics sent in by individual Clubs for discussion were pre- sented and discussed. s follows. Full minutes of this Council will be sent to the President of each Club with the hope that she will share them with her members. The meeting was then adjourned, the guests leaving immediately for Mt. Desert [1934] the Jordan Pond House where luncheon was served, followed by the meet- ing of the Conservation Committee, with Mrs. Robert C. Wright in the July 11th, 12th, 13th chair. The meeting of the Horticultural Committee, with Mrs. James Barnes MT. Desert air is reminiscent of a sea voyage in its wind-swept fresh- presiding, was held at the Malvern Hotel on Tuesday morning. ness-even better than a voyage, for sometimes the fragrance of pine woods is blown upon the wind. Seen from the top of Cadillac Mountain one realizes the glorious setting of the Island, for beneath a complete arc of deep blue sky sparkles a bluer sea outlining deep indentations of the shoreline of innumerable smaller islands; Mt. Desert hills and mountains with here and Program of the there an inland pond lay before us; on the distant horizon is the undulating Garden Club of Mt. Desert line of the mainland with its lesser hills, and every bay and bush and July 11th, A. M.: treetop shines in the translucent air. Henry James must have stood on Registration at Malvern Hotel this mountain when he said: "the two most beautiful words in the English Visit Bar Harbor Gardens or Mt. Desert Nurseries language are 'summer afternoon'. Luncheon in Private Houses Under the ideal conditions of such surroundings, the tonic air, and a P. M.: cordial welcome, it is not remarkable that the Maine Meeting was a success Visit Bar Harbor Gardens from beginning to end. To the Bar Harbor, Seal Harbor and Northeast Ocean Drive and Tea at Cromwell Cove Harbor hostesses, who entertained us in houses or gardens, we say an enthusiastic thank you, expressing regret that we cannot tell in detail of Evening: the dinners, luncheons and teas which added so much to our enjoyment. Annual Dinner at Bar Harbor Club July 12th, A. M.: Council of Presidents (Group A) Champlain Monument and Cadillac Mountain (Group B) Seal Harbor Gardens; Luncheon at Jordan Pond House (Groups Council of Presidents A & B) The Council convened at the Building of Arts, Bar Harbor, on Thurs. P. M.: day morning at 10 o'clock, Mrs. Jonathan Bulkley presiding. Conservation Meeting at Jordan Pond House After a word of general greeting Mrs. Bulkley asked the Presidents Cadillac Mountain (Group A) and Delegates of new Clubs, and the new Presidents and Delegates of old Walks or climbs, Jordan Pond (Group B) Clubs, to wait after the meeting to talk with her, with the Corresponding Tea at Mrs. Edsel Ford's, Seal Harbor Secretary of the G. C. A., Mrs. Robert Fife, and the two Vice-Presidents Evening: present, Mrs. Horatio Lloyd and Mrs. Carl de Gersdorff. Dinners at Private Houses 34 35 This Bernese Oberland chalet called naturally for an Al- July 13th, A. M.: Miss pine garden and Miss Gurnee's rocky cliff seemed the logi- Seal Harbor Gardens (Group A) Bell cal setting for the little portable house built in 1929 in In- Northeast Harbor Gardens (Group B) Gurnee terlaken by Herr von Moos, head architect of the well-known Luncheon at Private Houses Fabrique de Parquets et de Chalets on the Lake of Thun. P. M.: There was principally bed-rock at the top of the Maine cliff where the Northeast Harbor Gardens (Group A) chalet was set up, but the rocky pockets were filled with soil and how the Group B free place has burst into bloom from seed from "Floraire" sent for the Chalet Mrs. L. Dean Holden's Garden at Blue Hill, Maine, or en Amerique" by M. Henri Correvon himself. The Black Mansion, Ellsworth, Maine Tea in gardens of Northeast Harbor and Blue Hill Special train leaves Ellsworth at 6 P. M. This was a very comprehensive program well carried out. The garden of a landscape architect, the studio of an Mrs. artist, the private house of an architect, are the more inter- The visiting members of the GARDEN CLUB OF AMERICA were presented Max esting because of unfettered opportunity. In Beatrix Far- at the moment of registration with Volume II of the 'Visitors Book," Farrand rand's garden, "Reef Point," we were first aware of ma- which fitted cosily into the basket beside Volume I brought from York turity, then of a technique unflaunted, but of which one is Harbor. It was bound in yellow, with a photograph of a small boat sailing always conscious, which had aimed to preserve the natural beauty of vista, among wooded islands on the cover. The book included a map, some local tree and minor plant material. In Mt. Desert eleven of her gardens were history, and garden descriptions. ours to see. Through a short wooded driveway lies an English half-timbered house, to which, at the end of a connected covered way, has been added a "Pavil- ion" containing an office, garden library and secretary's room. Windows The three groups of gardens were reached by roads skirting either sea opened on the kitchen garden where, walled in and secluded, was a nice or mountains; many were planted in pockets of earth among rocks, or in example of how to grow vegetables, flowers and dwarf fruit trees. sunny places cleared in the midst of woods-a dramatic setting for the The little woodland surrounding the lawn was faced down with a luxuriant beauty of individual flowers and plants for which this region is planting of "natives,' laurel, viburnums, sweet-bay, barberries, ferns and justly famous. ever-present bunchberries, cornus canadensis. Hidden shady paths led out- ward to the end of a vista to the left of which was a three-hundred-year-old Abies rubra. Between house and garden are low flower terraces whose dry walls and Bar Harbor Gardens steps were lovely with rock plants. One felt that the tea-roses below the open casement windows not only adorned the terrace, but sent their fra- THE Farm House'' is one of the oldest cottages built by grance through the entire house. Miss the early dwellers in Bar Harbor. It was owned for three Mildred Mc- generations by one family and was built in 1800. The cot- Cormick tage rooms have many doors opening into the garden. A high cedar hedge surrounds the kitchen and flower garden where old fashioned borders of perennials and annuals are grown in masses of color. Architect: Arthur McFarland. This gem of a place, "Mon Gazon," is hidden from the Landscape Architect: Beatrix Farrand. Mrs. road. The house faces the Bay; between it and the water James D. lies the garden planted to the tide-line. The main axis of Heard the garden leads from the door of the living-room to a low boundary wall at the edge of the water. On either side of the path leading to the wall are borders of pale yellow foxgloves, pale yel- The approach to "Rockhurst" is through a small grove, low meadow-rue, valerian, baptisia, pentstemon--many cream-colored flow- Miss and the garden consists of a wide border of annuals and ers blended with the grey foliage of groups of stachys lanata, artemisia Gertrude perennials backed by cedars and deciduous trees forming gnaphalodes, stelleriana, dianthus, and large plants of coronaria alba set at Sampson an enclosure on three sides, the fourth being open to the regular intervals; the only red permitted in this garden is the red of view of wooded hills and more distant mountains. A path honeysuckle. In these borders Mrs. Heard has skilfully achieved the proper leads from the garden through a pine grove down to rocky ledges where balance of those plants which give accent, repeating a plant singly rather some wild planting has been done. There is real seclusion in this garden than in groups, so that at certain seasons the eye follows one variety which which is in the midst of the town. reappears at regular intervals. Landscape Architect: Beatrix Farrand. 37 36 All this lovely garden is seen from a low stone terrace, across the sea- front of the house, shaded by a great oak tree which throws long shadows The 'Hauterive' garden is on varying levels with a path Miss across the garden, a place of vistas and enclosures, each with its dis- along a curved tidal wall above the sea. At one side of the Miles tinguishing mark; a statue of Pan is placed in a heavily shaded arbor lawn is a rose garden of petal-shaped beds circling a Per- Carpenter silhouetted against the blue 3ea; another charming bit of sculpture is a sian-blue tiled pool. Beyond the house lies a grass terrace wall fountain-Verrochio's 'Boy with the Fish'' in the small entrance with a broad view of Frenchman's Bay across to the Gouldsboro Hills. court to the left. It is truly an enchanting place, successfully carrying out the owner's wish, which, as she expressed it, was "to frame the landscape, Through a screen of old birches and spruces, shallow steps lead to the to be a garden to look out from as well as a garden to be looked in to." flower garden proper, a gay mass of color between two raised flagged plat- forms, one shaded by old trees, and the other a double wall of lichen- grown stones planted with rhododendrons and finished with old Italian finials and wall fountain. Architects: Andrews, Jaques and Rantoul. Landscape Architect: I. Howland Jones. 'Tanglewold" was bought and altered by the present Mrs. owner in 1918 at which time the tangle of woods came up A. Murray to the door. In order to open the splendid mountain views, Young trees were cut and a design of terraces made to fit the steep hillside with as little disturbance as possible of the surrounding contours. The upper terrace, with its central fountain, is de- signed as a brilliant foreground to the quiet lines of the distant hills and is surrounded by fine clipped Thuja trees with a splendid white pine in the distance. Near the upper flower garden an informal planting of the natural juniper-covered ledges links the garden to the rocky surroundings. A Chinese Kwan Yin of the eleventh century presides over the outer plant- ing. There is a terrace of peonies and iris, another of ferns-the latter bounded by the forest. Landscape Architect: Beatrix Farrand. "Pointe D'Acadie" has one of the most beautiful sites Mrs. on the Island. A long curving shaded road leads through Kitchen Edward deciduous woodland and emerges into the cleared land near Browning the house; simple lawns and large coniferous trees make vistas but do not interrupt the unrivalled view of the har- hor, with its guardian lighthouse at the north, its many wooded islands and its frame of distant mountains. Hulls Maine There is no garden near the house, but many flowers for cutting are grown in a sheltered and hidden place cleared in the woodland beyond Plan of Garden the swimming pool. The glass fruit houses have espalier peach and nec- tarine trees, figs and grapes. Specialties grown here are the superb del- phiniums and tuberous-rooted begonias-blooms such as have never before been seen outside a Chelsea Show. On the terrace and in the house groups of equally superb potted fuchsias, heliotrope and diplacus prove what the Mt. Desert climate, plus horticultural knowledge, can do. 'Baymeath" is four miles from Bar Harbor village and Landscape Architects: Frederick Law Olmsted and Henry Codman. Mrs. overlooks Frenchman's Bay. It is surrounded by woods. Joseph T. The formal garden is enclosed by vine-covered stone walls Bowen on two sides, and by high fences covered with actinidia on the other two. The garden is a glowing mass of color, un- The garden at "Aldersea" was designed about twenty- Miss usual and interesting plant material growing with "abandon.' five years ago. It overlooks a cove of Frenchman's Bay Mary R. Following a wooded path one finds a bank thickly planted with wild and is surrounded on three sides by trees; there are two Coles terraces, the upper one all in green, the second centered flowers in great variety. with a small Italian fountain, with beds of annuals and Architects: Andrews, Jaques and Rantoul. roses and borders of perennials in lovely color. 38 39 The paths are covered with tanbark, and the two old iron gates are The architectural ornament of 'Wingwood House" and from Pennsylvania. The small low brick walls of the garden are made Mrs. without foundations and without mortar, and yet they withstand the the garden decoration was mainly adapted from the de- E. T. rigors of a Maine winter. This garden is full of charm and the owner's signs of the gifted wood-carver and architect of Salem, Stotes- Samuel MacIntire. The grounds were designed to give as personality. bury much illusion of space as possible for the house. On the sea side a view over Frenchman's Bay is seen from a sim- ple paved terrace flanked by elm trees and ornamented by tubbed and Mrs. Markoe, whose estate "Larehsea" she calls "pre- potted plants. On the land side the lawn is bounded on the north by Mrs. Garden Club garden,' describes it herself as follows: the entrance and service drives, and on the east by twin courts, one form- John "My little garden is one of the oldest on the Island. It ing the entrance road and porte-cochére, and the other a small garden, Markoe was made out of a bare field. The first step was the both planted for mid-summer brilliancy in various shades of yellow, building of three 'tumble-down' walls to define its lim- orange and blue. its. One of these is now covered with clematis; another by a Harrison's Architects: Magaziner, Eberhardt and Harris. yellow rose; the third divides the wild garden from the formal part. Landscape Architect: Beatrix Farrand. 'There is a little pool in the middle which produces water-lilies and arrow-weed. The whole note of the garden is simplicity. Its glory con- sists of three English hawthorne trees and six blue gentians which I left in bloom on October 25th. "The wild garden is filled with shrubs of all kinds, and when it is a mass of lupine and bramble and locust trees-all in bloom-it is a 'thing of beauty This estate, "Kenarden Lodge," built about forty years Mrs. ago by the late John S. Kennedy, is beautifully situated John T. on a point of land extending into Frenchman's Bay; its Dorrance lawns and old trees recall the life of leisurely old times. 'Greenway Court'' is placed on a high rock with wide There is a large Italian garden and spacious glass houses Mrs. views to the open ocean and into a cleft of the adjacent and vegetable gardens. A long entrance drive leads to the house, which Charles B. mountains. The situation is superb. looks out on the open ocean. Pike There are walks through the woods and along the cliffs Architects and Landscape Architects: Rowe and Baker. to a secluded terrace immediately above the sea. The garden consists of the wild planting close to the shore. Architects: Andrews, Jaques and Rantoul. The house at "Hare Forest'' is built on a high rocky Mrs. cliff overhanging the southern end of Frenchman's Bay Seal Harbor Gardens Potter with an outlook over its entrance and the mainland on Palmer the eastern side. The drives to and from Sea Harbor, and around it and about it, The wild and rocky forest of old pines and spruces is were over roads beautiful but bewildering-like the man lost in the the great beauty of the place combined with its wide sea-views. All Maine woods we "knew where we were but didn't know where anything planting on the roadside has been designed to harmonize with the natural else was.' Over the Schooner Head Road, the Otter Creek Road, the growth. Roadside and terrace planting was done by Beatrix Farrand. Jordan Pond Road, etc., we sped, with wonderful views on every side. Tho suggestion for the "Hidden Garden" at Great Head Mrs. was taken from many of the little openings in the island Herbert woods, often carpeted with wild flowers and surrounded by "Keewaydin" is built on the cliffs with a fine view Satter- spruce, fir and pine trees. There happened to be two or Mrs. over Seal Harbor toward Western Mountain. lee three such "wild gardens" here, and one was chosen with Edward K. The grounds and small garden were laid out by Beatrix a southerly slope, good soil, and a sea view in which to Dunham Farrand. The garden is almond-shaped, small and choice, spread a carpet of harmonizing colors. The controlling lines of the de- sign were the views of the sea and the cliffs of Beehive Mountain, and on built on the site of an old stable. It is entered by a gate designed by Mrs. Farrand. Beside it grows a mass of large single roses, these lines irregular flower groups have been placed in borders and long name unknown, with pure white blossoms three inches across. Hardy per- beds. The vivid yellows and reds are together at one side of the garden ennials in choice color and variety are set on either side of a weathered with the paler shades on the other. The design is accented by the mass stone and grass path. and color of the flowers which are at their most brilliant at midsummer. Architect: I. H. Green. Landscape Architect: Beatrix Farrand. Landscape Architect: Beatrix Farrand. 40 41 BUILT LANDSCAPES Gardens in the Northeast Gardens by Beatrix Farrand Fletcher Steele James Rose A.E. Bye Dan Kiley Photographs by Alan Ward Curator: Michael Van Valkenburgh, Harvard University A Traveling Exhibition Produced by Brattleboro Museum & Art Center The BUILT LANDSCAPES project is made possible, in part, by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts Design Arts Program, a federal agency in Washington D.C., and The Herb Quarterly, Newfane, Vermont 6 FORWARD 7 GARDENS IN CONTEXT John R. Stilgoe, Harvard University 12 MOVEMENT THROUGH LANDSCAPE Contemporary Sculpture and the Garden Experience Jean E. Feinberg 20 BUILT LANDSCAPES Gardens in the Northeast Michael Van Valkenburgh, Harvard University 58 BIBLIOGRAPHY 59 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Beatrix Jones Farrand, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden, Maine, 1926 Beatrix Jones Farrand, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden, Maine, 1926 Path through pine and spruce forest leading to the main entry gate. The path is made of Main gate in the stucco wall which surrounds the garden designed in the style of classical pine needles. Chinese gardens. A procession of Korean tomb figures parallels the entry axis. Beatrix Farrand influential in her later work,6 including the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden, featured in this exhibition. In 1895, Farrand traveled in Europe, studying exemplary landscapes. In Beatrix Jones Farrand was one of the most important garden designers at England she visited Hampton Court and other important sites. More sig- the beginning of this century. Her impressive body of work spanned a nificantly, she became acquainted with Gertrude Jekyll, a leading critical period in the development of landscape architecture: she designer and garden writer who collaborated with the architect Edwin practiced prolifically from 1895 until retirement in the late 1940s and Lutyens. 7 As a garden writer, Jekyll focused on the design importance of continued to consult and write until her death in 1959. The life and plant material and color theories, which had indelible influences on works of Beatrix Farrand have been documented in Beatrix Jones Farrand Farrand. - Fifty Years of American Landscape Architecture, which provides the Farrand opened her office in New York city in 1895 at the age of 23, and source for much of the biographical information cited here. Other her business flourished. In 1899, along with nine others, she founded the important sources consulted include works by Patrick Chassé² and American Society of Landscape Architects to foster exchange of profes- Marlene Salone. sional philosophies and experiences. Farrand's early writings reveal the Beatrix Jones was born in 1872 in New York City. Her aunt, the writer founding of her design ideas in Beaux Arts neo-classicism.9 Diane Edith Wharton, was influential in teaching and directing her to a career McGuire summarizes Farrand's design approach as modeled after the in landscape design. She received no formal professional education, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Italian villas but also modeled after since no school for such training existed in the 1890s. She was a friend of the English formal garden. 10 Mrs. Charles Sprague Sargent, wife of Professor Charles Sargent, an eminent horticulturalist and the first director of the Arnold Arboretum in Farrand was at the crest of her career when she started work on the Eyrie Garden for Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., at their summer home Boston.4 Farrand learned the principles of landscape design from Sargent, in Seal Harbor, Maine. At this time Farrand had a national reputation as a and he suggested that she study major European landscape designs.5 landscape designer and design commissions that included the campus Before traveling to Europe, Beatrix visited the 1893 Columbia Exposition designs for Yale, Oberlin and Princeton. Dumbarton Oaks, designed in Chicago, notable because it signalled an adaptation of the Beaux Arts between 1920 and 1940, and the Rockefeller Garden, known originally as neo-classicism in both architecture and landscape, which became the Eyrie Garden, are two of her most significant works. 22 The Rockefeller Garden is distinctive for several reasons. The garden flower gardens in the Occidental sense of the word are conception and its physical expression evolved through close collabora- unknown in China and Korea, it was clearly necessary tion between Farrand and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. The garden plan, to disassociate the figures from the actual flowers started in 1926, evolved until the late 1930s before the work was substan- and to keep them as guardians of the entrance walk and tially complete. Unlike most of Farrand's work and other period gardens surrounded by naturalistic and inconspicuous planting. that adjoin houses, the Rockefeller Garden was separated from the The flower garden is an enclosure surrounded by the house by a long walk through the woods. This helps establish the walls of stucco and stone. 15 garden's success as a stroll garden and retreat for contemplation. The The plantings along the Spirit Walk are broad, subtle bands of low, garden form did not derive from spatial relationships to architecture. Its indigenous plants: low-bush blueberry, bunchberry dogwood, haircap purpose was delight, not utility. moss and wintergreen. These native plants, selected from the surround- The walled garden contains an unlikely blend of Asian elements and ing woods, appear to have emerged from the adjacent forest. They are sculptural artifacts combined with flower borders derived from the color carefully combined with grading, taller plantings and low walls to theories of Jekyll. Mr. and Mrs. Rockefeller were greatly influenced by obscure glimpses of the geometrically-ordered flower beds, which are travel in China, Korea and Japan in the early 1920s. Mrs. Rockefeller not seen until one is halfway down the Spirit Walk, where one reaches a wanted the Maine garden to reflect the sensibilities of the Asian gardens cross axis perpendicular to the Spirit Walk. The intersection of the Spirit she had seen and also to serve as a place for Asian sculpture and Walk and the cross axis allows a framed, narrow view of the extravagent artifacts.¹ Previously Farrand had made only one garden, the Willard central flower garden. At this point one perceives Farrand's success at Straight Garden (1914-1924), derived from Chinese precedents. In this merging the diverse garden styles of China and England. The somber earlier work influences from the Imperial Chinese Garden can be seen, Spirit Walk with its native plantings is interrupted by a tiny view of the but without the sophisticated merging of Eastern and Western principles cacophony of color in the central garden, a skillful resolution of the which is a hallmark of the Rockefeller Garden.¹2 diverse elements. On first observance, the photographs of the Rockefeller Garden convey a The central flower garden is entered on the cross axis and is designed as strong Chinese impression. In fact, this is modestly felt in the garden, due a long rectangular panel with an oval at the south, enclosed on all sides largely to Farrand's preservation of the surrounding, native woodland. by the stucco walls and new plantings. Inside each segment of the recti- Patrick Chassé postulates that Mrs. Rockefeller's guidance directed linear panel, flowers are arranged in the Jekyll style to fade informally Farrand's sophisticated resolution. Chassé's review of the Farrand/ into one another by combinations of tints and shades of similar hues. The Rockefeller correspondence concerning the garden reveals an unusual species were selected from those which bloom prolifically in the last six appreciation of Eastern philosophy by the client, an understanding that weeks of summer, including phlox, delphinium, meadow rue, balloon contributed greatly to the final garden form.13 flower and numerous others. The garden is approached from the southwest on a pine needle path. The center of this area is incised almost two feet lower than the rest of This path gently meanders through spare pines and spruces to a high wall the garden and was originally filled with annual flowers. Patrick Chassé surrounding the garden. Its pink stucco glows in the shadowed forest. has studied the details of the coloration established by those plantings: The wall cap is made with ochre-glazed tiles imported from the For- The Center was filled by hues of blue and violet and bidden City in China. The patterns and details of the wall are reminiscent merges outward through pinks, reds, oranges and of walls in Beijing. The main garden entry is a roofed, Chinese gate that yellows to the low granite walls. extends above the wall. The path approaches this gateway from one side, The Central area and its borders were originally planned to also serve as preventing direct views into the garden. It is not until one crosses the cutting gardens. If they served this purpose it was for only a short period, threshold that a magnificent axis and procession of Korean tomb figures since cutting beds were developed outside the garden. Around 1940, the is revealed. The figures are arranged along a straight path in descending annuals were replaced with a continuous panel of mowed grass, called sizes to create false perspective and accentuate the powerful entry axis. the Greensward, with a perimeter planting of perennials. At the same This path, called the Spirit Walk, is over 1200 feet long, terminating with a time, the path which extended the axis through the center of this area tall Korean stele. Beyond this terminus, an overlook directs views to was removed.17 The bright perennials surrounding the lower grass panel mountains and a distant pond. are tranquil, elegant and powerful. Farrand's skill at making the flower It is somewhat uncommon in Western garden design that a main axis like colors work with the surrounding pink wall and the background of the Spirit Walk would not lead to the center of the garden. This axis native woodlands is one of the finest achievements in the garden. parallels but never culminates in or passes through the central flower At the north end of the central flower garden three gates pierce the garden. Farrand explained the importance of the Chinese and Korean enclosing wall. A circular moon gate was borrowed from classic Chinese elements in the formation of the complete garden plan: wall design and centered behind two spruce trees from the original The six Korean tomb "procession" figures had a woodlands, which marked the north-south axis of the central area. 18 dominating influence in the design of this garden. As Only one tree survives today. 23 Rockefeller Garden. It is important to note that Farrand's work on this garden spanned more than twenty-five years. The design of the flower color schemes originated from Jekyll's theories but was tested and refined for more than ten years. The Rockefeller family possesses the original plans from each season with numerous critical notes for revisions by Farrand and Mrs. Rockefeller. ¹ The number of colors and plants which were tested nears one thousand. Clearly her work was slow and exacting, and the results are fleeting, not like the permanence of paint on paper. The final planting plan must be patiently replanted when plants die in this composition. Farrand's patient search resulted in a work of art, one that affirms that great gardens emerge slowly, even from skilled hands. FOOTNOTES: Beatrix Farrand 1. Diane Kostial McGuire and Lois Fern, editors, Beatrix Jones Farrand (1872- 1959) Fifty Years of Landscape Architecture, (Washington, D.C., Dumbarton Oaks, 1982) 2. Patrick Chassé, Beatrix Jones Farrand - Her Maine Work, (Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Department of Landscape Architecture, Unpub- lished Term Paper, 1983). 3. Marlene Salon, "Beatrix Jones Farrand - Pioneer in Gilt-Edged Gardens," Landscape Architecture, (January, 1977), pp. 69-77. Beatrix Jones Farrand, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden, Maine, 1926 4. Eleanor McPeck, in Beatrix Jones Farrand (1872-1959) Fifty Years of Landscape Photograph, taken in 1929, shows one of the cardboard mock-ups which Farrand used to Architecture, ed. Diane Kostial McGuire and Louis Fern (Washington, D.C. resolve the north garden wall. Courtesy of Patrick Chassé. 1982), p. 24. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid., pp. 25-26 The design for the north wall and gateways carefully emerged. As she 7. Ibid., p. 26. 8. Ibid. had done at Dumbarton Oaks, Farrand made on-site full-sized cardboard 9. Beatrix Jones, "The Garden in Relation To The House," Garden And models of several alternatives, including a scheme in which the wall and Forest, (April 7, 1897). gates were located in front of the spruce trees. Farrand often used tools 10. Diane Kostial McGuire, in Beatrix Jones Farrand (1872-1959) Fifty Years of like mock-ups to find exacting solutions for her art. Photographic records Landscape Architecture ed. Diane Kostial McGuire and Lois Fern (Washing- of these remain, and one alternative is shown in this catalogue. Her ton, D.C.) pp. 6-7. uncompromising search for perfection resulted in calibrated and master- 11. Patrick Chassé, op. cit., n.p. ful gardens. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. At the south end of the central flower garden an elliptical lawn and 14. Ibid. subdued planted borders form a space for viewing the central garden. A 15. Diane McGuire, op. cit., p. 40. rectangular pool of still water at the far end of the lawn and two benches 16. Patrick Chassé, op. cit, n.p. establish a place for repose. The ellipse is vertically defined by tall 17. Patrick Chassé has unearthed this information as part of recent research on woodlands replanted by Farrand. The pink perimeter wall remains barely the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden. visible through this vegetation. A vase gate, also from Chinese gardens, 18. Patrick Chassé, op. cit., n.p. frames a subtle exit path from this area and leads back to the main gate. 19. The author reviewed the original plans at the gardener's house at the site, August 1983. One of Farrand's greatest achievements in the Rockefeller Garden was her extraordinary use of plants as design materials. Farrand was much more than a plantswoman, for which, regrettably, she has been dismissed. Far more than knowing about plants, Farrand developed a profound understanding of the design qualities of plants. Her training with Sargent and studies of Jekyll's writings provided a unique and unsurpassed wisdom. This genius, combined with hard work and trial and error, are responsible for the extraordinary achievements at the 29 BIBLIOGRAPHY BEATRIX JONES FARRAND JAMES C. ROSE Blanchan, N. "Forman Gardens in America," Country Life (July, 1908), Rose, James C. "Freedom in the Garden," Pencil Points. (October, 1938), pp. 271-274. pp. 639-642. Chassé, Patrick. Beatrix Jones Farrand: Her Maine Work. Unpublished Rose, James C. "Plants Dictate Garden Forms," Pencil Points. (November, paper, Harvard University, Graduate School of Design, May, 1983. 1938), pp. 695-697. Jones, Beatrix. "The Garden in Relation to the House," Garden and Forest Rose, James C. "Integration," Pencil Points. (December, 1938), pp. 758-760. (April 7, 1897), pp. 132-33. Rose, James C. "A Contemporary American House: The Spatial Discipline," McGuire, Diane Kostial, (ed.) Beatrix Farrand's Plant Book for Dumbarton Progressive Architecture. (1954), pp. 114-119. Oaks. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1968. Rose, James C. Creative Gardens. Reinhold, New York, 1958. McGuire, Diane Kostial, and Lois Fern (editors). Beatrix Jones Farrand Rose, James C. Gardens Make Me Laugh. Silvermine Publishing Co., (1872-1959) Fifty Years of American Landscape Architecture. Washington, Connecticut, 1965. D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1982. Snow, Marc. Modern American Gardens Designed by James Rose. Patterson, Robert W. "Beatrix Farrand 1872-1959: An Appreciation of a Reinhold, New York, 1967. Great Landscape Gardener," Landscape Architecture, (Summer, 1959), A. E. BYE pp. 216-218. Architectural Record. Residence of Mr. and Mrs. Donald Miller, Salon, Marlene. "Beatrix Jones Farrand: Pioneer in Gilt-Edged Gardens," Chappaqua, New York. Edward Larrabee Barnes, architect; A. E. Bye, Landscape Architecture, (January, 1977), pp. 69-77. landscape architect, May, 1959. Architectural Record. "Record Houses of 1969." Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Garment City House, Brooklyn, New York. Joseph and Mary Merz, architects; A. E. Bye, landscape architect, 1969. Landscape Architecture. "What You See: Landscape Luminosity," FLETCHER STEELE (April, 1966). Author(s) unknown (Fletcher Steele and Mabel Choate?). Description "Shifting Subsoil by Grader and Bulldozer Recreates the Contours of of Naumkeag with captions for slides, prepared for Slides Committee, Salisbury Plain." Residence of George Soros, Southampton, New York. Garden Club of America. From the archive at Naumkeag, Trustees of A. E. Bye and Associates, landscape architects, (July, 1969). Reservations; no date. "Two by Bye," Landscape Architecture. Harvard Hubbell Corporation, Book of Gardens, by the editors of House and Garden. New York: Simon Orange, Connecticut; Burce Campbell Graham, architect; A. E. Bye, and Schuster, 1955. landscape architect. Heap Residence, Greenwich, Connecticut. Ed Paul, Choate, Mabel. Naumkeag Garden, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Published Architect, A. E. Bye, landscape architect, (July, 1974). by the author, Summer 1956. Reprinted, April 1965. "The Bog - A Landscape that Maintains Itself," Residence of Mr. and Steele, Fletcher. "Contemporary Landscape Architecture," Contemporary Mrs. Howard Stein, North Salem, New York. A. E. Bye, landscape Landscape Architecture and Its Sources Exhibition Catalog. San Fran- architect, Landscape Architecture (March, 1980). cisco Museum of Art, February 12 - March 22, 1937. "Ha Ha for a Horse Farm," Landscape Architecture, Residence of Mr. and Steele, Fletcher. "New Pioneering in Garden Design," Landscape Mrs. John R. Gaines, Gainesway Farm, Lexington Kentucky. A. E. Bye Architecture, (April, 1930), pp. 159-177. and Associates, landscape architects, (May, 1981). Steele, Fletcher. "Landscape Design of the Future," Landscape Archi- "The Garden in Black and White," Garden Design, Lexington, Kentucky. tecture, (July, 1932), pp. 299-302. Design and photography by A. E. Bye and Associates, landscape Steele, Fletcher. "Modern Garden Design," The Garden Dictionary, architects, pp. 88-89. Publication Board of the American Society of Norman Taylor, Ed. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1936. pp. 505-506. Landscape Architects, (Louisville, Kentucky: 1982). Steele, Fletcher. "Naumkeag," House and Garden, (July, 1947), pp. 68-71, DAN KILEY 110-111. Byrd, Warren T. Jr. and Reuben M. Rainey, editors. The Work of Dan Kiley Steele, Fletcher. Personal correspondence to "jupe" (?). Written at A Dialogue on Design Theory. Division of Landscape Architecture, Naumkeag. With note by Mabel Choate (?). From the archive at School of Architecture, University of Virginia, 1983. Naumkeag, Trustees of Reservations. September 24, 1950. Kiley, Dan. "Landscape Design in the Primeval Environment." Architectural Steele, Fletcher (John). Report on European trip, 1913, for Warren H. Record. February, 1940, pp. 74-79. Manning. School of Landscape Architecture, Harvard University, Kiley, Dan. "Nature: The Source of All Design," Landscape Architecture. Thesis, 1913. January, 1963, p. 127. Steele, Fletcher. "The Temple Garden," House Beautiful, (July, 1933), Process: Architecture, Number 33. Landscape Design: Works of Dan Kiley. pp. 21-24. Process Architecture Publishing Co., Ltd., Tokyo, October, 1982. 58 Maine Olmsted Alliance for Parks & Landscapes Page 1 of 8 Maine Olmsted Alliance for Parks & Landscapes Journal Archive Landscape Architects & Designers The Last Garden of Beatrix Farrand by Patrick Chassé Spring 2003 Maine played a very important part in the life of Beatrix Farrand, and a substantial part of her intellectual and professional life was rooted there. 1 Her last home and garden, near Salisbury Cove, on Mt. Desert Island, is distinguished in many ways. It is the last garden she designed and the only 12-month garden she designed in Maine. It was built from architectural, horticultural, and ornamental fragments and ideas collected over a lifetime. It was the final and fitting environment for this remarkable designer and horticulturist. Beatrix Jones was born in New York on June 19, 1872, of Mary C. Rawle and Frederick R. Jones. Her interest in landscape gardening was fostered by her Contemporary view of Mrs. Farrand's study from aunt, author Edith Wharton, her uncle, John Cadwalader, and her heather beds in main garden. grandmother, Lucretia Rhinelander Jones. Early recollections of horticultural lessons at her grandmother's side, around 1877, and memories of the laying out and construction of the grounds of "Reef Point," the family's Bar Harbor summer estate in 1883 (designed by Roche & Tilden Architects), were warmly recounted among such influences. 2 http://www.maineolmsted.org/journal/articles/lad/lastgarden.html 8/16/2004 Maine Olmsted Alliance for Parks & Landscapes Page 2 of 8 Beatrix Jones, still in her teens, met Charles Sprague Sargent, director of the Arnold Arboretum, and studied with him there for four years, readily absorbing his deep love of plants, his appreciation for a fine reference library, and his desire for study and research. Sargent urged Beatrix to travel abroad and study gardens and parks in order "to observe and analyse natural beauty and learn from all the great arts as all art is akin. "3 In 1895, Beatrix Jones set up a practice in her mother's New York house, and quickly established a remarkable professional reputation. She associated herself with other prominent practitioners of landscape architecture, and became a founding member of the American Society of Landscape Architects in 18994-at the age of 27. During the best and most prolific period (1900-1940) of her design career, she undertook more than 50 projects on Mt. Desert Island. The evolution of the gardens there, including those designed by Beatrix Farrand, represents a cross-section of the history of that formative period in American Landscape Architecture. In 1913, Beatrix Jones married Max Farrand, Professor of American History at Yale, and took his surname as her professional name thereafter.5 She Residents of Garland Farm, 1958, left to right, continued her growing practice from offices in New York and Bar Harbor, with include Amy M. Garland, Lewis Garland, Beatrix Farrand, and Clementine Walter, at the front gate frequent trips to supervise projects across the country. In 1917, Reef Point to the new wing, flanked by the ffront gardens. was deeded to Beatrix by her mother, Mary Jones. The Farrands spent Note large pots of rosemary. summers there, and together began a visionary educational endeavor: Reef Point Gardens. Reef Point Gardens held a special place in the hearts and minds of both Beatrix and Max Farrand. After Max Farrand's death, in 1945, Beatrix directed her considerable energies to Reef Point Gardens as a botanical garden, library and horticultural experiment station. 6 She began publishing the Reef Point Bulletins in 19467 to explain the undertakings at Reef Point Gardens. Her value for research was given form in the design document, herbarium, library, and living collections. Bar Harbor's remoteness from academic centers, and the seasonal nature of the resort community framed Reef Point as an amusement, rather than a true educational institution. Scholarly use of Reef Point Gardens did not attain http://www.maineolmsted.org/journal/articles/lad/lastgarden.htm 8/16/2004 Maine Olmsted Alliance for Parks & Landscapes Page 3 of 8 the level Beatrix Farrand hoped for, and with additional factors of uncertainties concerning long-term finances and maintenance of the endeavor, 8 she reluctantly decided to abandon the project in 1955. Once she decided to end Reef Point Gardens, the transformation of Reef Point-and her life-were swift. Main Elements at Garland Farm The main house was torn down, and fixtures, architectural elements, and materials saved for reuse. The Reef Point library, design drawing, and herbarium collections were entrusted to the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of California at Greenhouse Berkeley,9 where "it would be used and cared for in a manner fitting its educational Main Earn Shop value.' "10 The property was sold to Robert W. Patterson, her long-trusted architect and Garden Reef Point board member, for disassembly and distribution of the plant collections. Charles K. Savage, garden designer and board member, raced to save the plant collection, designing two new gardens in Northeast Harbor (the Asticou Azalea Garden Front and Thuya Garden) and raising funds for their creation, and supervising their Furrand Garden o Wing construction. It is not generally known that a third part of the plant collection was moved to Garland Farm, near Salisbury Cove-the final home and garden of Beatrix Farrand. Study El 23 Cape Garland Farm was the ancestral home of Lewis Garland, longtime superintendent at "Reef Point," and his wife, Amy Garland, Reef Point's chief horticulturist. It consisted of a ca. 1800 cape, with a gambreled barn and a garage-workshop, on the remaining acres as Existing Buildings Route 3 of the original homestead. 11 The Garlands were very close to Mrs. Farrand and, when - Farrand Additions her retirement from Reef Point was evident, they planned to move her to Garland Farm. Plan of Garland Farm, showing final Robert Patterson designed an apartment addition, attached by an el to the main house, configuration of original buildings, in 1955-56. The wing, sandwiched between the main house and barn, was mostly built additions, and gardens. with architectural salvage from the former "Reef Point" residence. The new resident foursome at Garland Farm-Amy and Stew Garland, Clementine Walter, and Mrs. Farrand-had been the core of life at Reef Point. The existing landscape of Garland Farm was typical of a simple Maine farm: a few ornamental plantings near the house, some hedgerows for wind protection and http://www.maineolmsted.org/journal/articles/lad/lastgarden.html 8/16/2004 Maine Olmsted Alliance for Parks & Landscapes Page 4 of 8 screening, a vegetable garden, and extensive hay fields. Into this Mrs. Farrand designed two modest gardens that sandwiched her wing, front and back, like a conventional suburban yard-all in less than 1/10 acre. The front garden, framed with sections of Reef Point fence, was for favorite Asian and native plants, on gently sculpted rolling ground set with accent boulders. Plants included rhododendrons, a Japanese cherry, several azaleas, cypress, yew, mixed native and Asian ground covers, and a tidy boxwood hedge lining the bluestone walkway. The rustic granite bench from Reef Point, seen in many photographs of the perennial borders there, was installed in this front garden, along with the Chinese ceramic elliptical basin that now resides at Thuya Garden. 12 The entrance porch features railings, a pendant light fixture, and the front door from Reef Point. 13 Patterson also designed a series of removable glass panels and a door that could be installed to transform the porch to a glassed vestibule for wintering large container Front bluestone and brick walk, with plants. crisp box hedges, leading to entrance for Farrand wing, 1958. Architectural components came from IThe main garden, at the back of the wing, contained the favorite elements of Farrand's the dismantled Reef Point cottage. herbaceous plant collection, along with her beloved heathers and heaths. The garden, facing south-southeast, corresponds perfectly to the floorplan of the three rooms facing it: Mrs. Farrand's suite, her study, and the suite of her companion, Clementine Walter. The garden, enclosed by a carved wooden fence from Reef Point, 14 consists of a series of rectilinear "parterres" with gravel paths between. The plan is highly axial and ordered, while the plantings within the beds are flowing masses-giving a more informal overall effect. The central panels, opposite Farrand's study, are mostly heaths and heathers from her global collection, interplanted with lavender. Panels of mixed perennials and annuals lie outside the other rooms, along with a narrow border all around the inside of the fence. The back garden was integrated visually into the adjacent living spaces by French doors opening out from each room, and windows overlooking the garden. This garden featured several favorite ornaments: granite millstones-used as landings for each of the 3 sets of French doors-a lead cistern (now residing at Thuya Garden ¹5, a cast bird bath, and a http://www.maineolmsted.org/journal/articles/lad/lastgarden.html 8/16/2004 Maine Olmsted Alliance for Parks & Landscapes Page 5 of 8 sculpture of Buddha. The structural backdrop, outside the fence, is formed primarily by a composition of 3 Japanese cherry trees-believed to be un-named hybrids from the Arnold Arboretum-asymmetrically planted, and surrounded by shrub roses and other shrubs from Reef Point. Extra plantings were added along the driveway and surrounding the main gardens, to help meld the more intensely planted Farrand gardens with the simpler surroundings of the cape. Boxwood and rhododendrons, were repeated to tie the schemes together, but an important element in the surrounding planting was larger specimens from Farrand's collection. These include a Dawn Redwood, 16 a Florida Dogwood, a Stewartia, a Golden Chain Tree, Koreanspice Viburnum, Enkianthus, Forsythia, Hawthorne, and numerous Azaleas. These plants persist today, along with some of the groundcovers introduced at that time. Main garden, 1958, with carved Reef Point fence behind heather beds. FA small greenhouse and potting shed were added to the property for propagation Note Buddha sculpture to right. purposes, while the large potted plants, such as Rosemary and Lemon Verbena, were overwintered in the glass entrance porch. Remnant packets of the seeds imported from all over the world can still be found in the disused potting shed. ¹ 17 Beatrix Farrand died at Garland Farm on February 28, 1959 at the age of 86. Her ashes still mingle with the shores of Frenchman's Bay. The most notable surviving examples of her work on Mt. Desert Island include the Byrne Garden, the Herter Garden, the Kennedy Garden, the Mildred McCormick Garden, the Vance McCormick Garden, the Milliken Garden, the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden, the Seal Harbor Village Green, and Garland Farm. The truism that gardens usually die with their owners is proved by the scarcity of surviving examples. Garland Farm is the distillation of Beatrix Farrand's intimate home environment: architectural elements, ornaments, and plants, and has http://www.maineolmsted.org/journal/articles/lad/lastgarden.html 8/16/2004 Maine Olmsted Alliance for Parks & Landscapes Page 6 of 8 weathered the last 47 years surprisingly well. There have been two private owners since the Garlands lived at Garland Farm. 18 The recent death of the second owner, and the impending estate settlement and sale of the property View east across Mrs. Farrand's study, 1958, this year, leave its future in doubt, but efforts are underway to raise support to showing main garden plantings, lead cistern, and acquire and restore Beatrix Farrand's final garden, and make it accessible to stepped fence at edge of garden. the public. Maine native Patrick Chassé, ASLA, maintains an active design practice, based in Bar Harbor, Maine, with historic landscape projects in the U.S. and abroad. He lectures at the Arnold Arboretum, and other botanical gardens across the country, and is currently working on a book on moss culture. Further Reading on Beatrix Farrand Balmori, Diana, Maguire, Diane K. and McPeck, Eleanor. Beatrix Farrand's American Landscapes, Sagaponack, NY: Sagapress, 1985. Bliss, Mildred, "An Attempted Evocation of a Personality," Landscape Architecture, 49 (Summer, 1959) pp. 218-24. Brown, Jane. Beatrix: The Gardening Life of Beatrix Jones Farrand, 1872-1959. New York: Viking, Penguin Group, 1995. Chassé, Patrick, "A Dream Transplanted," Garden Design, 7:1 (Spring 1988) pp.26-31, 74-75. Dietz, Paula. Introduction to The Bulletins of Reef Point Gardens. Bar Harbor, Maine: The Island Foundation, with Saga Press, 1997. McGuire, Diane Kostial (ed.), Beatrix Farrand's Plant Book for Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1982. McGuire, Diane Kostial, and Lois Fern, Beatrix Jones Farrand (1872-1959): Fifty Years of American Landscape Architecture, Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1982. McPeck, Eleanor M., "Beatrix Jones Farrand, 1872-1959." A Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Maine. Portland, Maine: Maine Citizens for Historic Preservation, 1992. Salon, Marlene, "Beatrix Jones Farrand, Pioneer in Gild Edged Gardens," Landscape Architecture, 67 (January, 1977) pp. 69-77. End Notes 1 Over the past three decades Marlene Salon, Diane McGuire and Lois Fern, Eleanor McPeck, Jane Brown, Paula Deitz, and other authors have http://www.maineolmsted.org/journal/articles/lad/lastgarden.html 8/16/2004 Maine Olmsted Alliance for Parks & Landscapes Page 7 of 8 done much to bring Beatrix Farrand's design contributions to light. See "Further Reading " 2 Beatrix Farrand, Autobiography, Reef Point Bulletin, #17 (1959). 3 Beatrix Jones, "The Garden as Picture," Scribner's Magazine 42 (July 1907), pp. 2-11. 4 A.S.L.A. Transactions (January 14, 1924) speech by James Greenleaf, p. 50. 5 Louisa Farrand Wood, Beatrix Farrand's niece, politely corrected the author after a public lecture on Beatrix Jones Farrand, explaining that the family was much irritated by the use of the middle name "Jones"-Beatrix had never used-and had been unable to correct it in the press. Despite the author's attempts to alert other Farrand scholars of this Farrand faux pas, it continues to proliferate. 6 Beatrix Farrand, "Reef Point Gardens: The Start and the Goal of a Study in Landscape Gardening." Landscape Architecture 37:1 (October, 1946), pp. 12-13. 7 Beatrix Farrand, Reef Point Garden Bulletins, Bar Harbor, Maine: by the Max Farrand Memorial Fund. Vol. 1, Nos. 1-17 (1946-56). 8 In the autumn 1947, Bar Harbor was devastated by a 17,000 acre forest fire which claimed many of its famous estates and gardens. Among the economic effects, the sharp rise in taxes on the surviving properties, and the reluctance of the Town to grant tax-free status to Reef Point, blindsided Mrs. Farrand, and threw her careful long-term planning into question. 9 H.L. Vaughan, "Library Gift," Landscape Architecture (October, 1956), pp.298-300. 10 Beatrix Farrand, Autobiography, Reef Point Bulletin, #17 (1959). 11 The intact Garland homestead, with land running to the shore, can be seen in the Map of Mount Desert Island, Maine, Colby & Stuart, 1887. 12 Charles K. Savage purchased a number of items from the estate, in 1959, including the lead cistern and Chinese basin for Thuya Garden, where they remain. 13 The original front door from Reef Point was installed at Garland Farm with its hardware, transom window, and screen door. The unusual screen door is a copy of the main panelled door-with copper screen replacing the wood panels. 14 In a 1965 interview with the author, Amy Garland recounted that the carved grapevine panels in the fence had been rescued years before from the Bar Harbor estate "Chiltern," where Mrs. Farrand had designed a bold garden, and incorporated in a fence at Reef Point. These panels were among her most treasured garden mementos brought to her last garden. 15 Charles K. Savage purchased a number of items from the estate, in 1959, including the lead cistern and Chinese basin for Thuya Garden, where they remain. 16 Metasequoia glyptostroboides, or Dawn Redwood, is a tree long thought to be extinct. It was rediscovered in the mountains of China, and seeds collected by a Harvard/Arnold Arboretum sponsored expedition, in 1947. See Hu, H. H. Arnoldia, 58/4 o 59/1, pp. 4-7, 1999. 17 Paula Deitz comments on the inventory of Farrand's seed packets at Garland Farm: Introduction to The Bulletins of Reef Point Gardens. Bar Harbor, Maine: The Island Foundation, with Saga Press, 1997, p. 124. 18 Following the Garlands, the property was owned by Colonel and Mrs. Jerome Goff, and then by Mrs. Virginia Eveland and her daughter, who strived to keep the garden intact. Mrs. Eveland died in October, 2002. The project website is http://members.aol.com/SaveGarlandFarm/ http://www.maineolmsted.org/journal/articles/lad/lastgarden.html 8/16/2004 Thuya Lodge and Thuya Gardens When Charles Savage snoke of Thuya Lodge and Thuya Gardens, he began the tale at the turn of the century, with the establishment of a project that would evolve into Reef Point Gardens. This garden was designed primarily as decoration for the Jones-Ferrand Estate on the Shore Path. Beatrix Farrand became well-established as a landscape gardener, having studied with many experts in the field. She played a large part in the development of the gardens at Princeton and Dunbarton Oakes in Georgetown. She also laid out Rockefeller Gardens on Mount Desert Island. Reef Point Gardens was eventually opened to the public and was controlled by a Board of Directors, on which Charles Savage served. As Mr. Savage stated, "This project was well begun but did not survive". Mrs. Farrand became disenchanted with the public and saw what she perceived as a "lack of respect" for Reef Point Gardens. There were also some complications with taxation of the property. In 1955 she decided to do away with the Gardens. Mr. Savage and others tried many times. in vain, to convince her to continue the project. Her house was dismantled and removed from its site. The sale of her real estate at Reef Point was under the direction of Robert Patterson, a long time associate of Mrs. Farrand. (She owned other properties in the Salisbury Cove area.) The contents of her noteworthy Library of Herbals was given to one of the country's finer college libraries in California. Lesser books and materials were sold or given away by another of her associates, Mrs. Lewis Garland. Mr. Savage later discovered that the plants were to he offered for sale. He took an option to buy the materials, having a year's time to remove them to their new home. He felt Mrs. Farrand had achieved the finest collection of its kind north of Arnold Arboretum. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. had expressed an interest in the acquisition and asked to be kept informed of the plans. As the total picture became known, Mr. Rockefeller agreed to provide financial backing for Thuya Gardens. The plants were transferred to Thuya Lodge and the pond at Asticou, after an extension of time from Mr. Patterson. Plants were stockpiled on the back lawn of Thuya Lodge for over a year. The planning time became extensive and many larger plants were temporarily placed until final plans were completed. The Azelea Gardens were completed first (complete with Japanese sand gardens) as the larger plants survived quite well in their temporary placements. Thuya Lodge was built in 1916 as a summer home for J.H. Curtis. Mr. Savage became trustee for Asticou Terraces in 1928 until 1965. As Mr. Curtis had not been clear in his expectations of the property, it took several years to determine future objectives. The house, Thuya Lodge, became established as a library specializing in garden art, nature, rocks, etc. The Curtis library started with approximately twenty volumes of these specialty books. Many people have since made additions to the library. Several fine herbals have been donated. Mr. Savage felt that the library tied the trails (originated by Mr. Curtis) and gardens together. The wharf and lookouts were Mr. Curtis' ideas. Mr. Savage took great care in the building to match the granite. He wanted to match the color and character of the granite that had already -2- been used SO as to make a very even flow for the completed picture from the shore. The proper granite was found in Seal Harbor. The slab that houses the Curtis Memorial weighs over three tons. All the granite was moved by man and ingenuity in the early 30's. The idea of a gardens had been held by Charles Savege for many years before the actuality of it was realized. Soon after the Lodge and library were opened, it became apparent that the garden would be appropirate. The completion of the library, acquisition of the plants and financing by Mr. Rockefeller allowed the project to materialize. Mr. Saveage described the layout of the gardens as "somewhat formal lines, due to the space allowed, broken up by the mixture of plants, ponds and ledges". Charles Savage was an avid and dedicated wood carver. He loved to study designs and techniques. When the Savages visited the Pompeii exhibit, Mrs. Savage suggested his sketchpad would not be of great value due to the crowds. He replied that no one would be where he was going, which was to study latticework designs. He was able to sketch uninterrupted. After designing and supervising the layout of the Gardens, Mr. Savage also designed the several pavilions, the spring house and the extensive enclosing fence. The purpose of the fence was protection from deer. The visible parts of the fence are constructed of hand hewn cedar and wire fence has been incorporated in other areas. The wood used in the posts, lintels and rails are all of Thuya Occidentalis, the white cedar which abounds in the vacinity. It was chosen for its association as well as suitability. -3- The magnificent garden gates were also designed by Charles Savage. There are 48 panels, all different, and all familiar, unfamiliar or untraditional botanical subjects. He wanted a representation of Mount Desert Island and of Maine. Some of the old herbals made contributions. Three placques show mythical plants - the mandrake, the narcissus with quaint human-like figures growing from the tips of the leaf stem, and the Vegetable Lamb. The Vegetable Lamb represents the most curious myth of the Middle Ages. In Parkinson's herbal Paradisus (1629) the title page depicts the story of the Vegetable Lamb. It grew in the territory of the "Tarters of the East". Some described the lamb as being supported above the ground by a stalk flexible enough to allow the animal to feed on the herbage immediately surrounding it. When it had consumed all within its reach the stem withered and lamb died. The tale seems to have arisen from rumors of the cotton plant which had never been seen in Europe. Mr. Savage exectued all the lettering and six to eight of the gate placques himself. He then employed a cousin, Augustus Phillips, a topographer and local artisan, to complete the gates. Mr. Phillips worked for three years on the job. The carving of the placques was completed over one winter. Mr. Savage trained him in this craft, for which he later gained much recognition. (I recently discovered, while attempting to do a charcoal rubbing of the Vegetable Lamb, that these tremendous gates are stored away each winter, to be reinstalled for the enjoyment of "all who enter in".: -4- Researching this particular bit of history of Mount Desert Island has been a very enjoyable experience. Not only have I contacted several people and located some priceless collections of materials, I have also had the pleasure of sharing an afternoon with Mrs. Katharine Savage. She spoke at length of Mr. Savage's talents and undertakings in the Thuya Gardens project. She said he didn't consult with her too often on the project and he would often take his sketchpad to his music room to work. The residents and guests of Mount Desert Island are indeed blessed, in that the spirits of J.H. Curtis and Charles and Katharine Savage live today and are offered in that perfect setting. Charles Savage has insured this in many ways as can be seen at the Gardens and Library. He has also undertaken the tremendous task of compiling the Catalogue for the Botanical Library, which lists as well as describes the fine collection at Thuya Lodge Library. Also he has compiled the Trustee's Report, covering all expenses, some sketches, photographs, and interesting information during his period as trustee from 1928-1965. These references are available for use at the Northeast Harbor Public Library. Many thanks to Mrs. Katharine Savage for her openness and willingness to share this project. Also thanks to Bob Pvle, librarian at Northeast Harbor Library, for his energy and support. -5- The Garden Journal - July - Aug. e PRINTS at REEF POINT GARDENS x By Beatrix Farrand "G allia est omnes divisa in partes tres," and this is true in a minor way of Reef Point, at Bar Above-North end of reception room, Reef Point. Portrait of Le Notre surrounded by Harbor, Maine. The part of the three French Gardens. which is best known is the gardening Right-Photograph of portrait of Miss Ger- third, which is visited by several thou- trude Jekyll by William Nicholson. Giyen to sand plant lovers each year. The col- the National Portrait Gallery by her friend, lection of plants numbers considerably Sir Edwin Lutyens. over a thousand, and has been chosen with care in order to show what thin of great gardens, and as she was not an acid soil can happily produce in a some- accomplished photographer herself, she what austere climate. There are islands was once more inevitably led to search- of less acid soil, where single roses, ing for prints and monographs of well- annuals and perennials, and kitchen designed old gardens. gardens are growing. Many plants are The result is seen in the reception aliens, but an effort has been made to room and libraries at Reef Point. blend these harmoniously into the na- Approximately one hundred and fifty tive flora. prints hang on the walls of the various In the large room especially arranged The living heart of the enterprise halls, passageways, and rooms, and for meetings and conferences, the prints beats in the house with its reception each has been chosen to teach some are all of French Gardens, presided room prints, and the springs which aspect of garden art, whether it be a over by Le Nôtre, where a stately por- nourish the intellectual part of Reef clever adaptation of a design to a diffi- trait by Carle Marat hangs over the Point rise in the Max Farrand Library cult and unsymmetrical site, or a grand fireplace. The airy quality of space and and the old book room in the second series of terraces and fountains. Each light in the Rigaud prints contrasts story. one is worthy of study, whether the sharply with the more sombre pattern Many years ago, when the present strangely un - French topiary of the of the Silvestres - and as they each owner of Reef Point was a young stu- hedges of Marimont engraved by Israel speak unmistakably of their period of dent, she tried to educate herself in the Silvestre, or the group of great Italians Louis XIV or Louis XV, they are history of gardening and what the from the plates of Pannini of Villa interesting in their historic aspects great garden artists of the past had Conti, and the, classic beauty of Villa of costumes, coaches, and general sur- achieved. In those far away days there Lante. The Villa d'Este is also repre- roundings. was no course in landscape or archi- sented in one of the most dramatic of In the second-story room where the tectural gardening; consequently, many Piranesi's plates. Many of the Italian old books are cherished, the prints byways were followed which today's prints hang in the entrance hall and suddenly change from predominantly systematized education would omit. In- French ones are added, many after French and Italian gardens to those of evitably drawn to the old gardens of Rigaud such as those of St. Ouen and Brabant and Flanders. The grimmer Europe on account of the paucity of Marli, and an Israel Silvestre group of buildings, the simpler, almost monastic like achievements at home, she was various fountains and bosquets at Ver- gardens are strikingly different from again baffled by the lack of photographs sailles. those in the entrance hall and reception 1955 105 Marimont, an unusual French topiary garden. Engraved by Israel Silvestre (1621-1691). lines in box and by punctuations of clipped yews rather than flower beds. It was as elaborate a world as can today be imagined and quite alien to our pres- ent way of life. Nevertheless, there are ideas to be gleaned in almost every print, whether the placing and sur- rounding of a short flight of stairs, or the adaptation of a formal or semi- formal design to a plot of ground ir- regular in outline and level. In the later prints of Rigaud, the solemnities and pomps of Silvestre and Perelle are simplified and made more elegant, but the details of the different French prints are full of ideas waiting to be translated to our day. It may be a mir- ror pool, or a fountain basin and its surrounding mouldings, or again the skilled use of the science of perspective room. There are also some unusual levels, placing of buildings, and the use even in tiny town gardens, and every- pictures, a pastel by Odilon Redon, a of majestic flights of stairs or steps, where there is a rich fertility of design red hibiscus in water color by John La the animation given by vases, statues, and composition. The Italian prints in Farge, a Clematis Jouiniana painted at and fountains. The earlier prints of the the hall almost invariably show con- Reef Point by Sarah C. Sears, and an seventeenth and early eighteenth cen- summate art in the use of water, whe- oil painting of lavender-colored poppies tury tell the story of the pomp of court ther gushing and spouting fountains by Walter Gay, painted in Edith etiquette and of parties of bewigged or rippling cascades from basin to Wharton's garden at St. Brice-sous- and brocade-clad ladies and gentlemen basin on a hillside near the villa. Forêt near Paris. There are dozens of of the King's court. The parterres "de- Sometimes a quiet pool in front of a the so-called "vues d'optique," not of coupés" or "de broderie" and their grotto or in a parterre was designed as great value artistically but entertaining variations show without words that the a reflector of sky and clouds. The in their range of subjects - Constanti- palaces or chateaux were occupied often gayety of the running water and its nople, Rome, Spain, Germany, France, in winter when design had to be marked refreshing sound of tinkles, gurgles, Holland - and all spread their bright by inanimate material, such as pow- and splashes furnish a contrast to the colors in passages and alcoves. They dered brick dust, or different shades of sombre trees shadowing many a hillside may not be accurate as they were made gravel, relieved by neatly trimmed out- and giving relief in the heat of an to look as the engravers of the day thought they should. In the reference library there are likenesses of Max Farrand, who used the room while he was writing some of his books, and who has given his name to the room. There are also por- traits of gardeners - Gertrude Jekyll, Charles Sprague Sargent, John Evelyn, and William Robinson - and two prints of Linnaeus, one in court dress holding his favorite namesake Linnea, and one in the Lapland dress he wore when collecting in the North. Each separate print or photograph has been chosen for its educational value. The reception room exhibits the variety of design in French gardens, the accents given by hedges, variation of Villa Lante-two casinos behind the fountain garden. Designed by Vignola, engraved by Pannini (1691-1764). 106 THE GARDEN JOURNAL sented by a photograph of a portrait of Miss Gertrude Jekyll by William Nicholson, which shows the distin- guished lady sitting in her room at Munstead Wood. This painting now is a part of the National Portrait Gallery in London, to which it was given by her friend, Sir E. Lutyens. The sensitive hands and thoughtful face show this leader of gardeners in her old age when sight was failing but not intelligence. There is also a photo- graph of William Robinson whose books, like those of his friend and contemporary, Miss Jekyll, awakened Italian midsummer day. The Baroque the daily habits of those who used and England to the long neglected beauty fantasy, sometimes carried to a point enjoyed the gardens some hundreds of of hardy plants, rescued from cottage of the ridiculous, or tricks of "Giouchi years ago. gardens where they had been pushed d'acqua," as they were called in the A small group of the gardeners and aside in the early nineteenth century contemporary prints, are the points least designers of recent years are gathered passion for "carpet bedding." commended at present. Guests were in the Max Farrand Library-a photo- No gardener can afford to overlook supposed to step unwarily on hidden graph of the elder Frederick Law Olm- or neglect the study of these designers springs, which set in motion jets of sted, designer with Calvert Vaux of of the past. Even the most modern and water on the astonished and doubtless Central Park in New York, and functional designing can be helped by frequently indignant visitor. Charles Sprague Sargent, who was the reviewing the achievements of the old The quiet gardens depicted surround- first director of the Arnold Arboretum time, whether of centuries past or more ing the manor houses and chateaux of and designed much of its planting and recent years, since all good garden art Brabant are in abrupt contrast to the so taught garden lovers to use many must be founded on the basic principles various phases of French and Italian previously neglected native American of the study of the site, climate, and garden design. The houses themselves plants. The British gardeners, to whom fitness for its purpose. show a more northern quality of reti- we owe much of our knowledge and The old saying is as true now as cence and aloofness and a desire for interest in grouping of herbaceous when it was first said or written, protection from a less gracious climate. plants and hardy shrubs, are repre- "What would be fair, must first be fit." Again the total inaccuracy but gay colors of the "vues d'optiques" in the passageways depict scenes whether in India, Constantinople, Rome, Madrid, Paris, or London with the same high- heeled and hoop-skirted ladies and bro- cade-coated gentlemen. They cannot be regarded as trustworthy documents, but they do give a picture of a world as it appeared to the mind's eve of the draughtsmen of the period. The whole group of prints presents a history of western European gardening, such as may more laboriously be gleaned from volumes of garden history which abound in the reference library. The casual visitor may not appreci- ate the educational usefulness of the prints, but anyone interested in human life as revealed in its surrounding frame can trace the development and almost Chateau of Percke and Eelewijt - view of the approach and gardens. Engraved by Lucas Vorsterman Junr. (1578-1640). T.T. of the book's appeal but also of rent control and stabiliza- did not want to be associated The Collected Writings of lection of archival and edu- to her standards. In addition, a sign of the intellectual tion in New York, or how we with the embourgeoisement Beatrix Farrand: American cational materials to be used she decided to donate her imprecision of her approach. would get from where we are of my neighborhood, even Landscape Gardener, by students of landscape professional papers, consist- At times the author's lament to where she would like us to though I knew I was a part of 1872-1959 design at Reef Point, and ing primarily of plans and for a time when local com- be. it. My disingenuous boycott Edited by Carmen Pearson published bulletins on the photographs, to the Univer- munities organized "against Moreover, is it also possi- ended when I gave in to the University Press of New organization's projects and sity of California at Berkeley. wealth and power" instead ble that the city is more convenience of picking up a England, 2009 development. For many years these of for the right to a well- resilient, more complicated, bottle of wine not twenty Unfortunately Bar archives were stored off-site frothed cappuccino is acer- than Zukin allows? It con- yards from my home, and Beatrix Farrand: Private Harbor's tax base was severe- and were difficult of access, bic and to the point. But at stantly regenerates new over the course of a year I Gardens, Public Landscapes ly eroded, first by the Great discouraging most scholars; other moments Zukin seems social spaces of authentic, came to the know the owner By Judith B. Tankard Depression and then by a with little new research, simply nostalgic - not for a hybrid communities, even if of the store, her dog, and The Monacelli Press, 2009 disastrous fire in 1947, which Farrand's formerly stellar better New York, but for her they evade prying eyes. A several other regulars. One destroyed the homes of reputation went into a par- New York, the city she discov- walk today from Greenwich of these, a local artist, con- Unlike many of tial eclipse. In ered and made her own. Village to Wall Street or tributed a large, whimsical her contempo- the early Anyone who remembers the from Astoria to Jackson chalk mural across the shop's raries, Beatrix 1980s, howev- vitality and variety of Harlem Heights - still takes you back wall. On Friday Jones Farrand Beatrix Fausand er, papers twenty or thirty years ago through a number of ethnic evenings, the shop hosted (1872-1959), now presented in longs for a more complicat- enclaves and a tremendously wine tastings. Local distribu- considered one two Farrand ed telling of this story. mixed set of communities. tors uncorked bottle after of the foremost symposia The author would be Even within the most bottle, carefully explaining landscape were pub- more convincing if she had upscale environments there the provenance of each, designers of her lished, usher- spent a little time acknowl- remain informal and con- while an affable employee generation, ing in a edging not only the benefits tested spaces. Nevertheless refilled platters of high- never wrote a revival of that come with gentrifica- Zukin is underscoring a cen- grade cheeses and thinly book. As archi- scholarship tion - neighborhood safety, tral and brutal urban para- sliced prosciutto. I shared tect/landscape on this lead- rehabilitated housing stock dox. Gentrifiers are people knowing looks with a few architect Robert ing American but also the difficulty of who love cities for their other familiar strangers from W. Patterson, landscape controlling it; many govern- diversity. And yet their the neighborhood as we her friend and frequent col- many of the town's wealthy designer, research that was ment interventions in urban arrival triggers a process observed the Friday night laborator of her later years, summer residents. As a also fuelled by a growing planning and growth are whereby the older, poorer crowd. These urban explor- observed in his obituary trib- result, Reef Point Gardens interest in the lives and later judged as failures. groups that produced neigh- ers were visiting to see what ute, "She wrote less SO that was denied tax-exempt sta- careers of women profes- Zukin suggests "new forms borhood authenticity are Greenpoint was "all about" she could do more." Instead tus. Recognizing that the sionals. of public-private stewardship forced to leave. and lap up its "authentic" she chose a different way to foundation now had little The recent collection of that give residents, workers, It's hard to see your charms. Although a recent make a permanent contribu- chance for survival, Farrand Farrand writings edited by and small business owners, neighborhood change before arrival myself, I still regard- tion to her profession. In chose to dissolve it. She also Carmen Pearson follows a as well as buildings and dis- your eyes and easy to resent ed these people as tourists 1939 Farrand and her hus- made the radical decision to volume published in 1997 by tricts, a right to put down newcomers and media out- who could not appreciate the band, Max, formed the Reef destroy the house at Reef the Island Foundation in Bar roots and remain in place," lets for overexposing the lit- gritty quirks of the place I Point Gardens Corporation: Point and its gardens, realiz- Harbor, in which the Reef but says next to nothing tle place you discovered on called home. Sharon Zukin a horticultural study center ing that later owners would Point Gardens Bulletins were about the present landscape your own. We want the gate would understand exactly at her family home in Bar be unlikely to maintain them reprinted in facsimile with to come down just after our how I felt. Elihu Rubin Harbor, on Mount Desert an introduction by Paula own arrival, to preserve what Island, in Maine. Farrand Deitz. Farrand had published we found before it is also assembled a large col- destroyed. When the wine shop appeared, my first reac- tion was juvenile: boycott. I Life Lines 7, 19 the original Bulletins, which Teaching, which appeared in With characteristic verbal client, Mildred Bliss of Days and enthusiasm for all tant to remember that the included articles written by 1910. Here she somewhat economy, she summed up Dumbarton Oaks in Wash- things environmental, open purpose of her gift was to her as well as by several of sternly lays out a demanding her nearly sixty-year career ington, DC. Bliss, who had space, especially "green" aid aspiring landscape archi- her associates at Reef Point, course of study for aspiring in less than three printed been very close to Farrand, open space, was hailed uni- tects in their own design at irregular intervals between women landscape designers. pages, mentioning by name recalled her profound sensi- versally as a blessing. At first studies. Almost certainly 1946 and 1955. Although This immediately raises the only a few of her more than tivity to music, her fine there was little awareness Farrand would be astonished there is an overlap of five question: where had she her- two hundred clients. She voice, and her ultimate deci- that this precious space, if she knew that historians essays, Farrand afficionados self learned these skills, and listed her honors, revealing sion to become a landscape rather than simply being were now using the collec- will want both the Deitz and who were her teachers? that in 1899, only three years gardener rather than a "leftover" land, had some- tion to study her own life Pearson volumes in their Farrand never took formal into her profession, she had singer. She also described times been designed by and career. libraries. courses of any kind but felt unworthy of being Farrand's perfectionism, her human beings. Then came Contrary to Farrand's An especially valuable fea- received all of her education, named a charter member of almost obsessive attention the realization that Central wishes, however, her books ture of the Pearson collec- from the elementary level the American Society of to detail, and her insistence Park in New York City and and prints and Jay's glass tion is its inclusion of the on, from tutors. We know Landscape Architects. A life- on working with her clients many of the nation's other slides (the latter copied onto full text of the neophyte that Charles Sprague long Episcopalian, Farrand as codesigners rather than urban parks had been 35mm) were not kept togeth- landscape designer's 1893- Sargent, director of the ended her brief memoir with as passive recipients of her designed by Frederick Law er but were instead absorbed 1895 "Book of Gardening," Arnold Arboretum, provided a phrase from the Roman own ideas. The following Olmsted Sr. This was the into the library of Berkeley's which has never before been instructors for her in plant Catholic requiem mass: "Lux year Bliss gathered together dawn of the "Olmsted College of Environmental published. This was a hand- identification and horticul- perpetua luceat eis," append- Patterson's article, her own Renaissance," a welcome Design. Unfortunately public written diary the author ture from the ranks of his ing to it only the word appreciation, an article by development but one with a universities are chronically kept while visiting Europe staff. Her tutors in civil engi- "FINIS." Lanning Roper on Dumbar- shadowy underside: parks underfunded and specialized with her mother; the title, neering, a key component of Five months after her ton Oaks, and a list of were "good" because they archival collections are rarely her own, seems a misnomer, landscape design, were death from heart disease on Farrand's work and had the were not only open to the a priority. Because the Jekyll, since Beatrix was not then recruited from Columbia February 27, 1959, two per- compilation privately print- public but belonged to the Farrand, and Jay plans, along gardening or giving advice University, but here again we ceptive and affectionate rem- ed, using the same title as public. By contrast, private with the library's impressive on gardening herself. A close have no names. For these iniscences of Farrand were that of Patterson's article. gardens were seen as elitist holdings of California comparison with Charles reasons and many others, a published in Landscape Archi- Almost a quarter of a century because they belonged to architectural drawings, had Platt's book on Italian gar- Farrand study of the scope tecture Quarterly. The first, would pass before compara- individuals - wealthy indi- no full-time curator until dens (1894) and with Italian and caliber of Judith written by Patterson, was ble attention was again viduals. recently, they were not readi- Villas and Their Gardens Tankard's book has been called "Beatrix Farrand, 1872- focused on Farrand's life and Interest in Farrand lay ly accessible to historians. (1905) by Edith Wharton, needed for a long time. 1959: An Appreciation of a career. dormant during this period, In fact, few people knew they Farrand's aunt, could at Farrand was her own first Great Landscape Gardener." In the 1960s and well into although her professional were there. some point be revealing biographer. In 1956, at the Patterson's article is invalu- the 1970s, the cultural cli- library, plans, photographs, In the 1970s, however, a since they visited many of age of 84, she wrote a third- able because, of the many mate in America was inimi- herbarium, and print collec- renewed interest in historic the same places. person narrative of her life people who worked closely cal to renewed appreciation tion were safely stored at private gardens arose, and Another interesting item that was published after her with Farrand, either in her of Farrand or, indeed, any Berkeley, along with the modern scholarly investiga- included in Pearson's book is death in the last issue of the office or as a consultant, he landscape designer who spe- plans of Gertrude Jekyll that tion of Farrand was an article Farrand wrote Reef Point Gardens Bulletin. was the only one who has cialized in private gardens. she had purchased and the launched, appropriately by a on landscape gardening for described her working habits Instead, in the era of Earth plans, photographs, press- a book entitled Vocations in detail. clipping albums, and slides for the Trained Woman: The second article, "An left to her for Reef Point by Opportunities Other Than Attempted Evocation of a her contemporary Mary Personality," was written by Rutherfurd Jay. It is impor- Farrand's most important 20 Bellefield directly abuts planting plans among the set exhibition-quality render- plans for either place were side North America during Into Art, also published by Springwood, now The Home from Berkeley, and surviving ings, but we do not know the ever implemented in her the first eleven years of the Monacelli Press (2001). of Franklin D. Roosevelt family photographs were too artists' names. Similarly, the lifetime. project. Anticipating their Today, we are in the midst National Historic Site, and recent to be relied upon as draftspeople in her office, Tankard's book includes a spring and summer stays in of what might almost be the narrow end of the gar- evidence of Farrand's origi- unlike those in the Olmsted chapter on Farrand's college this country and Bliss's even- called a Farrand renaissance. den comes right up against nal choices. The Garden firm, did not initial the plans landscapes, building on the tual retirement from his Under the leadership of the property line. Luckily, Association decided to they prepared, although we solid foundation offered by diplomatic career, they Patrick Chassé, the Beatrix the Newbold and Roosevelt replant the Bellefield garden know the names of some of Diana Balmori in an essay in bought a somewhat rundown Farrand Society has been families were friends, and with the same plant materi- her later assistants. the Sagapress book. Tankard property in the Georgetown formed, adopting once again a Newbold daughter played als that Farrand had used in Dorothy Straight was also ably discusses Farrand's section of Washington in some of the goals of the Reef as a child with the future a garden further down the another client with whom numerous gardens on 1921 and proceeded to totally Point Gardens Corporation president. Hudson in Garrison, New Farrand developed a close Mount Desert Island, devot- reshape it over the next sev- that were abandoned SO In 1975, Bellefield was York. While this is a ques- friendship. After Willard ing a chapter to The Eyrie, eral years. In 1940 they many years before. A number purchased by the National tionable preservation prac- Straight died in the flu pan- the John D. Jr. and Abigail donated the house, its collec- of Farrand's projects have Park Service to serve as tice, the garden today looks demic of 1918, Dorothy Rockefeller garden in Seal tions of Byzantine and pre- been restored, including her administrative headquarters splendid, as can be seen in married a Yorkshireman, Harbor, which she worked Columbian art, and its final Bar Harbor home, for the Roosevelt and the color photographs cho- Leonard K. Elmhirst, moved on for almost a quarter formal gardens (sixteen-plus Garland Farm. Vanderbilt National Historic sen by Tankard especially with him to England, and of a century (1926-1950) and acres) to Harvard University, 2009 also saw the publica- Sites. Park Service historians one taken from a third-floor developed the grounds of which is extant and occa- and its naturalistic garden tion of two books (both studied the house, part of window. Dartington Hall in Devon, sionally open to the public. (twenty-seven acres) to the reviewed in the last issue of which goes back to the late One of Farrand's most again with Farrand's help. Farrand's last garden, National Park Service. Site/Lines) that helped place 1790s, but were unaware that distinguished midcareer The Straight garden in Old her own Garland Farm in As the letters between Farrand in the context of the garden was historically projects, undertaken at about Westbury was subdivided in Bar Harbor (1955-1959) a Farrand and Mildred Bliss in other women landscape gar- significant. Its plantings the same period as Belle- 1951, but Dartington Hall diminutive space compared the archives of Dumbarton deners/architects. These declined, and by 1991, when I field, was Elmhurst (later survives. with The Eyrie and most Oaks reveal, the women were Thaisa Way's Unbounded first saw the Bellefield gar- called Apple Green) in Old Two other major Farrand of Farrand's other gardens became intimate friends. Practice: Women and den, little was left except Westbury, on Long Island. gardens that have recently is discussed in Tankard's Bliss, the more extraverted Landscape Architecture in the towering hemlock hedges Farrand designed the garden been restored are the rose final chapter. of the two, was probably Early Twentieth Century and a few straggling peonies for Mrs. Willard D. Straight garden at the New York Dumbarton Oaks in responsible, at least initially, (University of Virginia Press) in the planting beds. A few (Dorothy Payne Whitney) Botanical Garden (1915-1916) Washington, D.C., perhaps for the informal tone of and my Long Island years later, it was discovered between 1914 and 1932; the and the garden at the the best loved and most vis- the correspondence, which Landscapes and the Women by a local garden club and by house had recently been Hill-Stead in Farmington, ited of Farrand's gardens, their husbands were drawn Who Designed Them (W. W. Katherine H. Kerin, a gradu- remodeled by Delano & Connecticut, which she is the subject of one of into through affectionate Norton). It appears to have ate student in landscape Aldrich. The most striking designed for Theodate Pope Tankard's best chapters. The exchanges between "MilRob" been a fortuitous coinci- architecture from Cornell, feature of the landscape was Riddle about 1920. In both history of the Dumbarton and "MaxTrix." Although dence that these, as well as who made it the subject a Chinese garden that gardens, Farrand's intended Oaks landscape is also the Tankard cites this corre- the Tankard monograph and of her master's thesis. The reflected the Straights' plantings have been story of one of the most spondence, she rarely quotes the Pearson collection, all Beatrix Farrand Garden extended honeymoon in that installed, although there is complete collaborations it, apparently feeling that it appeared during the fiftieth Association was formed and country and their continuing no evidence, photographic or between landscape designer is adequately dealt with in anniversary of Farrand's undertook the restoration interest in its culture. Tank- otherwise, that her planting and client in the known his- Susan Tamulevich's death. of the Bellefield garden. ard includes a watercolor tory of the profession this Dumbarton Oaks: Landscape May eternal light contin- Unfortunately, there were no plan and perspective of the in spite of the fact that the ue to shine on the memory garden. Farrand would have clients, Mildred and Robert of one of America's finest contracted with professional Woods Bliss, were living out- landscape designers! delineators to produce these Cynthia Zaitzevsky 22 THE GARDEN CLUB OF AMERICA 15 EAST 58TH STREET. NEW YORK 22. N. Y. TELEPHONE PLAZA 3-8289 PRESIDENT MRS. FERGUS REID. JR. February 1, 1956. Dear Louise : It was such fun for us all to see you here last month. I am enclosing a letter I sent to Mrs. Homer Reed, the President of the Mt. Desert Garden Club, about the Reef Point Gardens, and also her reply, which is most discouraging. I think I will write myself to Mrs. Thatcher's daughter, Mrs. Edward Browning, Jr., as Betty Corning tells me she is young and active, and lives all the year round at Bar Harbor, and, therefore, might be able to do more for the Reef Point Gardens, and might be more interested. If I hear anything encouraging from her, I will tell you. This has been a sad week for The Garden Club of America. I have just been to Anna Kinney's funeral. She died of her third heart attack on Monday, and I suppose you read in the paper about Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm Edgerton crashing in a plane in Venezuela, and all ten people in the plane were found dead. We cannot believe it, as Mrs. Edgerton has been so active on our Board and on the Executive Committee, as the Director who served on that Committee/ We are all distressed about both Anna Kinney and Edna Edgerton. It will be a sad Directors' Meeting on Wednesday, when I must announce both deaths. Fergie and I took our two boys for a week of golf in Hobe Sound, before young Fergie goes into the Army this month. I hope you are having warm weather and that you are feeling well. Do take care of yourself. Always affectionately, Edree. Mrs. Francis B. Crowninshield, Boca Grande, Florida. THE GARDEN CLUB OF AMERICA 15 EAST 58TH STREET. NEW YORK 22. N. Y. TELEPHONE PLAZA 3-8289 PRESIDENT MRS. FERGUS REID. JR. February 9, 1956. Dear Louise : I have just had a long talk with Mrs. Lincoln Cromwell, an old lady, whose opinions I respect. She is a member of the Garden Club of Mt.Desert, and she came in to tell me just what the situation is at Reef Point Garden. As an old friend of (Mrs. Farrand, she feels very strongly that everything that could be done at Reef Point has been done, and it proved to be unsuccessful. Mrs. Farrand put all her money, her professional experiences, her time and thought into this project, and the fact remains that no students came to the gardens, no one looked at the books in the library, and no one enjoyed the gardens, except a few tourists who went through the gardens quickly. Now, the books are in a library where many students can find them, and will certainly use them if they are interested in horticulture. Mrs. Cromwell feels very strongly that it would break Mrs. Farrand's heart even more if any one tried to resurrect the gardens, as she was unable to make it a success, how could any one else do it ? Everything was done to make it a worthwhile spot, but people are not able to spend time studying her books or plants while they are on a vacation in Maine. It is too remote for any students, with no places for them to stay, etc. It was all very sad. Mrs. Cromwell said Mrs. Farrand had spent her life on this project, and to see it die before her eyes was heart breaking. Mrs. Cromwell feels that if it could not work as an educational garden, with all the money and thought that Mrs. Farrand put into it, why should any one think it could work now ? I know you were interested in the gardens, as they were lovely and worthwhile, but it seems impossible to keep them open, as there are not enough people interested or with the time to go and enjoy them. I did write to Mrs. Browning, but I have not had time to hear from her, and Mrs. Cromwell tells me that Mrs. Browning's husband died about a year ago and she may not even be living at Bar Harbor. I will let you know if I hear from her. Mrs. Cromwell's parting words were to beg me not to stir up anything, as At would hurt Mrs. Farrand terribly to have some one think they could make a success of Reef Point Gardens, when she had done so poorly.) This all seems very complicated, and not easy to solve, but I will keep you posted if I hear anything more. Hope you are having lovely weather, it is cold and raining here. Always affectionately, Edice Reid 9/20 C. 3 Bar Harbor VIA 1888- B Farrand ? 1. Signatures include C.H. Dorr, not GBD: mores Jesup evolved from 1892, one if Board of Managers. 2. mission "the better regulation of the vollage pertaining to Health Cleanlinesis, ad Public convenuence. (9/20/88). But also "to secure the best resuetts in preseurry r returned beaut tes of the place (see p.g 4). 3. as Committee stracture was establish in mid etay 1880's, mores Jarap was involved in the Inspection Canmittee as was Mrs. Dorr and YBO on the Water Funt Committee (1888). am HBD suggest estableshart of VIA nursery for shade trees. (3/11/91) 4. In 1891 sogrific cant changes in charter " "public migrant "intended to "ather parts of man "The BHUIA may receive at hold Maland personal purput not exceedy Fifty thousand dollars in procet make contracts to he binding upon struct but not upon its intrividual method is 5. Continuing involvement The Our. BHVIA. 2 Cornmetter structure Finance Entertrenote, Savitay, Road Pather, Treat Plantings. Eachdeticed (pp. 107ff, 1891) as of 1894, Mrs. Dor. is Chair of Comm. onlines, George on foods + Paths along c North bank Joses bestrix Jones on both. July, 1893 Minute, Pathe Comm. calls attention to "the work done y un George Does on the road idea and contrast it arth the horrible eyesores with which our [eyes are ] met on most of the roads on the island. Stress driff guring of readsides I Ept. 1895 Inmute received An GBD, chairman of the Speese Committee he biggle path, a report raturd as whole. note: An pg 200 refere to "Seventh an neal meet of the BU VIA; 7/21/96. a 1896 mark Urs doer is in Nominatory cammin inclusin m Bond of managers . she of Gurge are in this groy. also weir Mitchell & M. Jemp. more evidence of Dorr/ Coderalader polls Go. Date 1001 BHUIA-3 Dorr is one of 3 member of a new commtter I "to connect redurse with the Brand of Health a the "thorough sanitary renovation of such posting the Village f Bit. as the consulter bego to their attention. Funds schande for the present epidemic "to "proceen expect assistance." 1897 mes. Daris report ) of Committee a Trees given (09.227). CBI, 7.7. Smith, M.D. t S.Weir nitchell are the 1597 Sanitation Commettee Mrs. Cadwalader Jones+ Mrs. on Village (monthle - report, 1897. George Dan 1897 report on tangle Path (pes.243). Miss fratring Jones appear on 1898 list of board of managero also for Lowreder for 1899-1900 Mrs. Charles Does still Chairs Comm on Trees and is mabulf Entertainment Crem. Rev. hourence continue invalvent. BHUIA-4 Length July 1901 repat by 6BD if Wnh done S Tree and Road -Side Committee. Gz.288 H.). Good example of Daris detail, at writing style, ad prinities what follness (291 ff. ) is another 2 page Biggle Path amattee report. Clear to me that GBD is the main agent of these efforts. Buycle Path ad newport mountain Road Committee supercedes Bougle Path Committee, 190% note In 1917 mrs. dorr rolonger Charris or is a amountle must but still Board of manager member. George still a Road 2 Pathe Cmn at notice and 19 ownership by BHUIA of town land (v.2.pg) notice of death of Mrs. Charks Does (p.g.33) Sept. 29, 1902, also posted id' B.H. Record her as me of original in corporation in 1888. Refer W be transitity to that seenest pg. 12/27/2016 XFINITY Connect XFINITY Connect eppster2@comcast.net + Font Size - Tracking down the Farrand scrapbooks From : Pauline Angione Tue, Dec 27, 2016 12:50 PM 2 attachments Subject : Tracking down the Farrand scrapbooks To : William Horner , Ron Epp , Ruth A. Eveland , Pauline V. Angione I would like to track down the Max FarrandScrapbooksthat Bill and Ronfound in the Map Room last year. They are no longer there. I suspect they ending up being loaned/given by Doug to either the Bar Harbor Garden Club or The Land and Garden Preserve of Mount Desert Island. Bill: Which was the entity that Doug was talking about giving things to last year instead of to The Jesup??? I have selected contact, staff, board member info as available on their websites. Attached as PDF's. Could you look these over and see if you recognize any names? My idea is to try to track them down, and then see if we can find out if they are loaned or gifted. If loaned, to get them back and if gifted to see if we can borrow them long enough to get them scanned so that the people of MDI can access them, as was Doug's wish. Thanks. P. Pauline V. Angione 92 Main Street, Prospect Harbor, ME 04669-5005 pangione@gmail.com 207 963 2242 Home/Messages 207 632 4962 Cell/Messages/Texts 800 393 0154 Fax (Private in email) BarHarborGardenClub.pdf PDF 78 KB Board of DirectorsStaff_LGP.pdf PDF 122 KB doughts. THE NATIONAL PARK ON MOUNT DESERT ISLAND. by Beatrix Farrand. More than three centuries ago Champlain wrote: "The same day we passed also near to an island about four or five leagues long, in the neighborhood of which we just escaped being lost on a little rock on a level with the water, which made an opening in our barque near the keel It is very high, and notched in places, so that there is the appearance to one at sea, as of seven or eight mountains extending along near each other. The summit of most of them is destitute of trees I named it Isle des Monts Deserts." This description of the bold and grandly outlined mountains of the new reservation was written after Champlain's voyage of ex- ploration down our eastern coast in 1604, under the orders of his friend and patron the Sieur de Monts, whose charter and grant had been given him by that picturesque and gallant gentleman, King Henry of Navarre. He was told to sail down the coast of Acadia, since in those early days the name of "Acadie" was given to the whole eastern coast of Maine, a tract of land vast in comparison with the little Nova Scotia district of Evangeline's day. Champlain first saw the Island after the fog had lifted on a morning in early September, and he refers more than once to its high mountains, then, as now, landmarks to every coastwise traveller by sea or land. He headed his boat up the broad sheet of water now called Frenchman's Bay, landed in a little cove near where the town of Bar Harbor now stands, and after talking to the friendly Page I of q 3/16/2016 XFINITY Connect 2 Typescript "NPor MDI" XFINITY Connect eppster2@comcast.net + Font Size - Re: BF on the Park and George Dorr From : Ronald Epp Wed, Mar 16, 2016 10:26 PM Subject : Re: BF on the Park and George Dorr To : Scott Koniecko Dear Scott, This is clearly the next to final draft of her 1917 Scribner's Magazine article. I was sent a copy of this draft by Marti Harmon but unfortunately the last page was omitted. Have you seen the published article which contains nine photos by George R. King who also did work for Mr. Dorr? This is an important article for many reasons not the least being that along with articles by Dorr and president Eliot in National Geographic the year before, it too treated Sieur de Monts National Monument as if it had been elevated to national park status; it also gave significant attention to the little known Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations. Frankly, at times when I read her words it is as if Dorr is speaking. I want to talk to you soon about a discovery I made of Farrand typescript--that may be unique--in the archive of Doug Chapman in the basement of his Bar Harbor law office. Give me a call when it is convenient. Thank you for sharing! All the Best, Ron Epp From: "Scott Koniecko" To: eppster2@comcast.net Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2016 2:28:54 PM Subject: BF on the Park and George Dorr Hello Ron, Found this at Berkeley and thought it was something that you would like to see. Scott https://web.mail.comcast.net/zimbra/h/printmessage?id=359451&tz=America/New_York&xim= 1/1 An Island Landscape Gardening Culture: The Legacy of Nurserymen from 1880 to 1920 By Betsy Hewlett When the Mount Desert Nurseries were started [in 1896] conditions at Bar Harbor and elsewhere on Mount Desert Island were far different from the present. The simple fishermen's huts and farmhouses, collected around each sheltering harbor when the sea was the only highway, had grown as the stream of visitors increased into big hotels; while summer residences, simple or costly, were springing up on every available site along the shore, flowers were in demand to make the bare hotel rooms beautiful and gardens around the new summer homes were everywhere in the making. It was a transitory condition, but it was based upon a real and permanent human need and opportunity for gardening, which trial and experience had shown to be extraordinary. The time was one of great activity along horticultural lines.1 -George Bucknam Dorr, ca. 1942 As the eastern Mount Desert Island shoreline transformed from fishing villages and shipping gateways into a horticultural showplace of lavish cottages with gardens and manicured landscapes, economic opportunities for local residents moved away from fishing, shipping, and farming to gardening, landscape construction, and property maintenance. Over a forty-year period from 1880 to 1920, there was a major shift from traditional island land and sea occupations to new ones that relied on the summer cottagers for their creation and their income. The contemporary legacy of this lifestyle change is a robust garden and landscape history built upon the aesthetics of place established in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This article was written with the encouragement of several friends, family, and fellow history travelers, including Judith S. Goldstein, Tim Garrity, Earle G. Shettleworth Jr., M.J. McIsaac, Anna Ryan, Ronald 0. Epp, Deb Dyer, Patrick sia. Chasse, Deb DeForest, Scott Koniecko, Raymond Strout, Jack Russell, Betsy Rawley, and Acadia Senior College members Mary Holway, Anne Funderburk, Roz Rea, and Bill Horner. Chebacco. (2016) Rr 20-44. A Scottish Nurseryman Comes to Bar Harbor William Miller was an early nurseryman who relocated to Mount Desert Island at the outset of the horticultural boom in the Northeast. His birth into a farming community near Firth of Clyde on the southwest coast of Scotland in 1863 meant Miller was well- versed in rough terrain and often cruel and hard seasonal changes similar to those of Mount Desert Island. In his late teens, Miller's first stop after leaving the family farm and plant nursery in Ayr, Ayrshire County, Scotland, was the city of Edinburgh. The public gardens were hiring, and the new horizon looked promising. His family were nurserymen, growers and propagators of plants for the elaborate landscape design projects common throughout the British Isles and elsewhere in Europe. As populations were shifting to the industrialized urban areas, Miller saw opportunity in Edinburgh. A requisite stop in any late-nineteenth-century European garden study tour was the Royal Botanic Garden of Scotland, located in central Edinburgh. While carrying out his duties as a gardener in the Edinburgh public gardens, Miller encountered touring scholars. Many of these encounters were with Americans studying and visiting the grand gardens of Europe. The Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh contained one of the foremost scientific and educational garden collections. Founded in 1670, this esteemed institution amassed one of the finest herbarium and living collections in the world by the late nineteenth century. Gardeners associated with the public gardens of Edinburgh were prized and in demand, especially for those American industrialists and scholars eager to replicate the beauties of European gardens in their home estates, summer playgrounds, and nearby public spaces. Miller was aware of opportunities in Boston and the Northeast for experienced gardeners, particularly those versed in nursery production by virtue of their Scottish training. It was not long after arriving in Edinburgh that Miller sailed to the United States, arriving in Boston in January 1886 aboard the ship Prussian. He immediately obtained garden construction work at Stonehurst, the newly constructed Robert Trent Paine country estate set on 109 acres in Waltham, Massachusetts. This lush, rural retreat was one of many design masterpieces of the famed Boston landscape firm of Frederick 21 EDITH WHARTON COLLECTION Page 1 of 43 YALE UNIVERSITY BEINECKE RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY YALE COLLECTION OF AMERICAN LITERATURE p4. EDITH WHARTON COLLECTION YCAL MSS 42 by William K. Finley New Haven, Connecticut July 1989 Last updated: June 2003 View Search for digital images from Connect to Beinecke Connect to Yale Library's Finding catalog this archive [using call Aid Database [the source of this Library's Home Page record number] file] EXTENT Total Boxes: 68 Other storage formats: Linear Feet: 38.75 Copyright © 2003 by the Yale University Library. ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION PROVENANCE The collection was formed from gifts from the Edith Wharton Estate (1938-1939), Gaillard Lapsley (1938-1946), Oscar Lichtenberg (1959-1965), Percy Lubbock (1954), Georges Markow- Totevy (1980), and Louis Auchincloss (?), with smaller bequests from numerous other donors (especially John Hugh Smith and Margaret Chanler) and with purchases with Beinecke funds. OWNERSHIP AND LITERARY RIGHTS The Edith Wharton Collection is the physical property of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Literary rights, including coyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs or assigns. For further information, consult the appropriate curator. CITE AS http://webtext.library.yale.edu/xml2html/beinecke.wharton.con.htm) 10/8/2003 EDITH WHARTON COLLECTION Page 2 of 43 Edith Wharton Collection. Yale Collection of American Literature. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. RESTRICTIONS ON ACCESS This collection is open for research. EDITH WHARTON, 1862-1937 Born Edith Newbold Jones on January 24, 1862, in New York City, Edith Wharton was from birth a part of the wealthy New York society she depicted SO vividly in her fiction. Through her father, George Frederic Jones, and her mother, Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander Jones, she could claim descent from three families whose names were synonymous with wealth and position: the Stevenses, Rhinelanders, and Schermerhorns. Educated at home with tutors and exposed at an early age to the classics in her father's large library, Edith Wharton showed early literary precocity. Although it cannot be said that her parents encouraged her writing, Lucretia Jones recognized her daughter's talent and in 1878 had a slim volume of her adolescent poems (titled simply Verses) privately printed and distributed to family and friends. By this time, however, Edith had already completed an unpublished novella of some 30,000 words that she called Fast and Loose. After these youthful trials, Edith for the most part put aside her serious literary endeavors to play the role of a young society lady. Having suffered through a broken engagement with eligible young Harry Stevens when she was nineteen, Edith in 1885 married Edward R. "Teddy" Wharton, a member of a prominent Boston family and thirteen years her senior The couple settled first in New York City, then purchased a home, "Land's End," in fashionable Newport, In 1902 they moved into "The Mount," their impressively large mansion in Lenox, Massachusetts, with Edith herself contributing to the design and interior decoration. She had already displayed her talent in this field in collaborating in 1897 with the architect Ogden Codman on The Decoration of Houses, her first full- length published work. Edith and Teddy's marriage, however, was never on a very solid footing. From the first they experienced intellectual and sexual incompatibility, with Teddy's later neurological disorders adding to their estrangement. After living apart for many years, they divorced in 1913 when Edith was fifty- one. They had no children. Although she never relinquished her American citizenship and made occasional visits to the United States, Edith Wharton lived permanently in France, from 1907 until her death, first in the fashionable Rue de Varenne in Paris and, after World War I, at her two homes: the chateau Ste. Claire at Hyeres and the Pavillon Colombe near Paris. Here she graciously entertained many of the noted literati of Europe and took great delight in her gardens, which became famous throughout France. Among her closest acquaintances who experienced her friendship and hospitality were Walter Berry, Gaillard Lapsley, Percy Lubbock, Robert Norton, Bernard Berenson, Paul Bourget, and, most prominently, Henry James, with whom she discussed her writing and from whom she received much advice. http://webtext.library.yale.edu/xml2html/beinecke.wharton.con.html 10/8/2003 EDITH WHARTON COLLECTION Page 3 of 43 Still in Paris when World War I erupted, Edith Wharton spent most of the war years organizing various charities for war relief, the most prominent being her two organizations for war refugees, the Children of Flanders and the American Hostel for Refugees. For her unflagging aid to war-torn France and French and Belgian refugees, she was awarded numerous decorations by the French and Belgian governments, the most noted being the French Legion of Honor. After the war she continued for many years her aid to tubercular patients in France. In 1923 Edith Wharton was awarded an honorary doctorate of letters by Yale University for both her contributions to literature and her humanitarian endeavors. From the publication of her first short story in 1889, Edith Wharton devoted her life to her writing. During her lifetime she published twenty-two novels, eleven collections of short stories, two volumes of poetry, four books of travel or cultural interpretations, an autobiography, three other works of non-fiction, several translations, and numerous uncollected poems, stories, or articles. Although Edith Wharton's novels and stories reveal many themes and settings, those novels which unflinchingly depict New York aristocratic life have won her enduring fame. Among her most critically acclaimed titles are The House of Mirth (1905), Ethan Frome (1911), The Custom of the Country (1913), and The Age of Innocence (1920), which won for her the Pulitzer Prize. She is best known as a novelist, but several of her many short stories have been judged among the best American stories of the twentieth century. Although most of her collections contain stories of note, two that are often singled out as exemplary are early collections: The Greater Inclination (her first published collection, 1899) and The Descent of Man and Other Stories (1904). A complex woman of her day, Edith Wharton was long before her death generally regarded as one of the foremost American authors of the twentieth century, her work admired and acclaimed by many of the leading writers and critics of her time. The many biographies and critical studies devoted to her life and work give testimony to her enduring reputation, and her surviving correspondence with many leading men and women of letters, as well as her family and friends, gives clear indication of her varied interests and concerns and often includes perceptive comments on her unique world. Edith Wharton died at her home in Hyeres, France on August 11, 1937, at age seventy-five. DESCRIPTION OF THE PAPERS The Edith Wharton Collection at The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, estimated at some 50,000 items, consists of manuscripts, letters, photographs, and miscellaneous personal papers that belonged to Edith Wharton and were part of her estate at her death; letters, manuscript material, photographs and related papers from the Louis Auchincloss, Gaillard Lapsley, Percy Lubbock, Oscar Lichtenberg, and Georges Markow-Totevy collections of Wharton material; and essays, articles, and other material pertaining to Wharton's life and writings. The collection spans the years from Edith Wharton's early life (1876) to recent Wharton scholarship (1980), with the bulk of material covering the years of Wharton's greatest literary productivity, 1910 to 1937. The Edith Wharton Collection is divided into twelve series: I. Writings, II. Personal Correspondence, III. Professional Correspondence, IV. General Correspondence, V. Personal Papers, VI. Photographs, VII. Gaillard Lapsley Material, VIII. Oscar Lichtenberg Material, IX. http://webtext.library.yale.edu/xml2html/beinecke.wharton.con.html 10/8/2003 EDITH WHARTON COLLECTION Page 25 of 43 ILY general 1940-11 Campbell, Mrs. Patrick See: Theodora Perry Tiffany, Box 30, folder 932 730 Cambon, Jules M. 1916, 1918 Canby, Henry Seidel See: The Literary Review, Box 37, folder 1140 24 731-41 Chanler, Margaret ("Daisy") 1902-33 742 Clark, Sir Kenneth M. 1936-37 Clark, Lady Elizabeth 743 Claudel, Paul n.d. 744 Conrad, Joseph 1912-17 745 Crawford, Francis Marion 1899 Apr 2 746 "D" general 1905-36 747 De La Mare, Walter 1936-37 748 Deland, Margaret 1899 Oct 20 749 Dimnet, Ernest 1932-35 750 D'Indy, Vincent 1916 Sep 22 751 Dix, Morgan 1902, 1905 752 Doane, William Croswell 1907 Nov 18 753 Dorr, George B. 1902-06 754 Dumaine, Jacques 1918, n.d. 755 Dunsany, Edward John 1911 Jan 19 756 "E" general 1930-33 757 "F" general 1906, 1910 758 Fairchild, Sally [1915?] Nov 17 25 759-66 Farrand, Beatrix Jones 1912-37 767-68 Farrand, Max 1914-36 769 Fitch, Clyde 1907-[09?] See also: Box 36, folder 1105 770 Fitzgerald, F. Scott (copy only) 1925 771 French, Daniel Chester 1905 Nov 12 772 Frederich, J. 1935-37 773 Fuller, Henry Blake 1902 Mar 27 774 Fullerton, William Morton [1907] Oct 19 775 "G" general 1934 776 Galsworthy, John 1915, 1918 777 Gide, Andre 1916-19, n.d. 778 Gilder, Richard Watson 1902-09, n.d. http://webtext.library.yale.edu/xml2html/beinecke.wharton.con.htm 10/8/2003 4 Visitors to Garland Farm Among the visitors was a group lead by Jeff Sainsbury www.jeffsainsburytours.com, who specializes in high-quality garden tours. (The editor joined their tour the British Channel Islands in June.) Other groups came from Wave Hill in New York City and the Beacon Hill Garden Club in Massachusetts. One of the most enthusiastic groups was the entire team of garden volunteers from the Beatrix Farrand Garden Association www.beatrixefarrandgarden.org based in Hyde Park, New York. Their efforts in restoring Bellefield, a garden designed by Farrand in 1912 for her Newbold cousins, are exemplar. "We all felt we had made an important pilgrimage to such hallowed ground, and we treasured being there in the house and library and looking at the planting plans and Beatrix Farrand Garden Association, July 2010 comparing notes with ours. We were SO inspired by the mission of the BFS and feel such kindred 2010 was a banner year for visitors to spirits," reported Anne Symmes, Director of the Garland Farm. As word continues to spread about the garden rehabilitation, over 200 visitors from the BFGA. Among the guests in their group was Gail Griffin, Director of Gardens at Dumbarton US, Canada, and France traveled to Maine to see Oaks. Beatrix Farrand's last home and garden and enjoy the docent-led tours. One of the most frequently asked questions was, "Why did Beatrix Farrand demolish Reef Point?" Visitors were most curious about the circumstances surrounding Farrand's stay at Garland Farm, her education, and the work in the garden. As always, a number of experts among visitors contributed to the knowledge of Garland Farm. Marti Harmon and COA students, June 2010 Jim Fuchs In addition to the gardens, the library at Garland Farm has proved an important destination. Scholars from near and far have visited, including 13 students from the College of the Atlantic who used the library for their research papers. Other visitors included Dr. Nancy McKnight of the University of Maine/ Marti Harmon with Orono, who brought her Edith Wharton class, Elizabeth and Ronald Epp, June 2010 and Ronald Epp, the historian who is preparing Jim Fuchs a biography of George Dorr and the founding of Acadia National Park. 3 Treasures from the BFS Library Don't miss the BFS Library and Collections Committee's upcoming program on October 9 from 3:30PM to 5PM in the library at Garland Farm. Join committee members who will speak informally about their favorite "treasures" from the library and archives. A reception follows and there is no fee for the event. Please RSVP: 207-667-8344 or library@ beatrixfarrandvociety.org Carolyn Hollenbeck In the News On May 6, the Cultural Landscape Report for Garland Farm received the BOSTON SOCIETY OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS Award of Excellence from the Boston Society of Landscape Architects. The award HAMPSHIRE 2010 AWARDS JURY was given to Pressley Associates, Inc. and the Beatrix Farrand Society. On hand Beatrix Farrand at Garland Farm: Cultural Landscape Report to receive the award were BFS board member Diane Kostial McGuire and Patrick Harbor, Maine Chassé, who initiated Save Garland Farm. "This detailed planning project and AWARD OF EXCELLENCE and Planning report is of great value to our profession and our general society's cultural heritage," remarked one of the jurors. "The jury hopes this work can become a model for other reports covering important places with historical value to landscape culture and BSLA design." The framed award is now on display at Garland Farm. The BFS learned of another award quite by chance. When BFS librarian Marti Harmon attended the Portland (Maine) Flower Show this spring, she BSLA Award of Merit, 2010 discovered that one exhibit had been given the Beatrix Farrand Design Award. The Asian-themed exhibit received the award for an alternative garden style or design that utilized native or new plant introductions, imaginative use of space, richness of detail, and overall distinction. The BFS hopes to become involved in this award in the 2011 Portland Flower Show. At the BFS annual meeting on August 7, four new advisors were appointed. Bar Harbor resident Diane Cousins has been an invaluable source of information on Amy and Lewis Garland. Ruth Eveland, who once lived at Garland Farm, is head librarian at the Jesup Memorial Library in Bar Harbor. James Owen Ross, of Skowhegan, is a designer, historian, and philosopher. Valencia Libby is a landscape historian who taught horticultural history at Temple University for many years, prior to moving to Blue Hill, Maine. Portland Flower Show, March 2010 Marti Harmon Wish List Library - Reference books, books with Reef Point bookplates, letters and archival documents related to Beatrix Farrand, library table and chairs Garden - Joyce Chen scissors, Felco hand pruners, ARS long-reach 7' pruner, Florian ratchet-cut lopping shears (Mini Loper RL 101), sheep shears; all-purpose trowels, hand-held weeders, dibble, long-handled wire weeder; Collinear hoe, stirrup hoe, rake, and gas-powered shredder Office - Paper shredder Funding Opportunities - Bookcases and lighting for the library $900, microfilm positives of Jekyll Collection $500, outdoor benches and chairs for Window boxes by Kathy VanGorder, front lawn $2,700, orientation video for visitors $27,000, essential wall repairs July 2010 - Jim Fuchs for Farrand Wing $40,000, custom-made birdbaths, statue, and cistern for Terrace Garden, rehabilitation of Entrance Garden For more information about funding or naming opportunities, please contact Emily Fuchs visit@beatrixfarrandsociety.org Please send checks with gift identification to Treasurer, Beatrix Farrand Society, P.O. Box 111, Mt. Desert ME 04660. Please note that all donations are tax deductible within the limits of the law. Spring Reading Beatrix Forrond Society News SORIAS In an ideal world, Judith Tankard's Carmen Pearson is not a landscape new book, Beatrix Farrand: Private historian, or a horticulturist, or even a Gardens, Public Landscapes (Monacelli Press, 2009), would have been written Beatrix garden designer. She is a distant cousin of Max Farrand (Beatrix's husband) in two volumes, Volume I: The Life and and began her research in the hope Volume II: The Work. It is to the author's of uncovering and defining the role immense credit that she interweaves Beatrix played in the Farrand family. the two flawlessly SO that we see how She discovered much more, including the work Farrand did come directly a trove of insights into the developing from the life she chose to lead and how professional mind of the young Beatrix one complemented the other. All BFS Jones and the more mature Beatrix members will benefit enormously from reading this book and Farrand as well as Max Farrand's carefully studying the plans and photographs. Many of the partnership role in her life. Carmen's book, The Collected gardens are given thoughtful attention from their initial planning Writings of Beatrix Farrand: American Landscape Gardener, through their implementation, and their eventual demise. 1872 -1959 (University Press of New England, 2009), is Today, after completing this cycle, several of the gardens have a compilation of the published articles that gave Beatrix been restudied and preserved by inspired restoration. Tankard early visibility in the landscape world as well as an array of takes us through this process SO that we can clearly see that professional correspondence that illuminates her philosophy, the gardens are living examples of Farrand's work. No matter professional style, and tireless work ethic. Although many of what one's particular is-plants, both native and exotic, these articles can be found in archived publications, having books on horticulture and landscape gardening, architecture, them assembled in one book brings continuity and deeper planning and travel-these subjects are treated in detail SO we insights into her work. This book complements several begin to see their inter-relationships and how Farrand expressed recent publications that examine the work of Beatrix Farrand, them in garden design. including Judith Tankard's new book, Theresa Mattor and One particular fascination to me is her early life as Lucie Teegarden's Designing the Maine Landscape (Down Beatrix Jones and how she came to realize that her life's work East Books, 2009), and Thaisa Way's Unbounded Practice: lay in a different direction from her conventional upbringing. Women and Landscape Architecture in the Early Twentieth One important influence on her was her mother, Minnie Jones, Century (University of Virginia Press, 2009). and her aunt Edith Wharton, both of whom led by example. A favorite inclusion is Farrand's formative Especially important was her life in travel, particularly in gardening journal, she kept from 1893 to 1895 and which England and Scotland where she learned at an early age to is now in her archives at the University of California at appreciate the beauty of the natural landscape and how this Berkeley. The handwritten journal has been transcribed and could contrast with the designed garden. included without analysis, to be read as an unselfconscious One important aspect of Farrand's creative life that is exploration through the landscapes of the western world. The missing from this book is the correspondence which Farrand first entry, written in Bar Harbor and dated October 1893, had with her clients. She left a small amount of correspondence, begins a lifelong inventory of notable plants and landscape but the larger amount of it was not part of her bequest to the features she encountered wherever she went. Her greater University of California at Berkeley and we have to assume that adventures begin with a trip later in the year to the World's it was destroyed. This kind of correspondence is also helpful in Columbian Exposition in Chicago in the company of her any biographical study because it reveals the creative mind in mentor, Professor Charles Sprague Sargent, and his wife. action. In spite of this, Tankard is able to present us with many Here her critical eye quickly and thoroughly takes in the of the joys and vicissitudes of the client-designer relationship. details of Olmsted's epic landscape there. More extensive She also reveals the competitive relationship of many of the travels follow in Europe, especially to Italy with "P.W.," landscape architects practicing at this time. This was especially her code name for her soul-mate and aunt, Edith "Pussy" true of her work in California where she came into conflict with Wharton. A pilgrimage to all significant Italian villas reveals established practitioners as Lockwood de Forest, Jr., William architectural and spatial insights as well as planting details. Hertrich, and Florence Yoch. She held a special reverence for the Villa Lante in Bagnaia, This is truly a remarkable book which defines Beatrix which she described in great detail. Throughout these Farrand as a superb designer, a woman of exceptional character, landscape explorations one feels like a bird-a very lucky and a person of a very private nature. Tankard manages to bird-on her shoulder, seeing these gardens through her eyes present her as a vibrant human being, which is the best that can and being privy to her private views and comments. Carmen be said about any biographical undertaking. Pearson's book is a must for landscape history scholars and -Diane Kostial McGuire for Beatrix Farrand fans. -Patrick Chassé, ASLA Corliss Knapp Engle (1936-2009) When Corliss Engle died on November 26, 2009, the was a sister of Corliss's grandmother, May Carleton Knapp, and BFS lost a good friend and benefactor. Her impressive list of the wife of Cornell president Livingston Farrand, one of Max achievements included serving as a director, committee chair, Farrand's brothers. When Daisy learned that Max Farrand was and horticulture and photography judge of the Garden Club of interested in Miss Beatrix Jones, she visited Beatrix at Princeton America. She received many awards, including the Garden Club of and found her ably supervising a large crew of men. When she America's Achievement Medal, a national honor. She was a trustee returned to Cornell, she reported to her husband that if Beatrix of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society and the New England wanted his brother, she would have him. Daisy Farrand, who was Wildflower Society as well as an active member of numerous plant a gardener in her own right, has a peony named after her, and societies and garden groups. She also served as a horticulture judge I suspect this was something of a family tradition, as there is a and was a frequent exhibitor at flower shows as well as a gifted begonia named 'Corliss Engle.' -Margaret P. Bowditch photographer. In 2008, I brought her to Garland Farm to meet Emily Ed.: Donations may be made to the Corliss Knapp Engle and Jim Fuchs as well as the BFS archivist, Marti Harmon. After Scholarship Fund established by the Chestnut Hill Garden Club, this meeting she quickly decided that the BFS was to be the home P.O. Box 67442, Chestnut Hill MA 02467. of her Farrand family papers. Corliss's great aunt, Daisy Farrand Spring 2010 The Beatrix Farrand Society NEWS Beatrix Farrand Society Officers: BFS Acquires Photos of James Fuchs President Garland Farm Richard Crawford By Judith B. Tankard First Vice President Diane K. McGuire The BFS recently acquired an important Second Vice President collection of over 200 photographs of Garland Howard Monroe Farm that formerly belonged to the Garland family. Secretary These photographs, along with other memorabilia, Neil Houghton were bequeathed in 1996 to BFS member Diane Treasurer Cousins, a great-niece of Lewis Garland. Thanks to the generosity of two anonymous donors, the BFS Directors: was able to add these extraordinary photographs to Peggy Bowditch Richard Crawford their archives. The black-and-white images depict Emily Fuchs the entrance and terrace gardens in the early 1960s James Fuchs just after Beatrix Farrand's death in 1959 as well as Robert Golden caretakers and visitors to Garland Farm during that Marti Harmon Amy Garland in 1921. Carolyn Hollenbeck period. These photographs will be an invaluable Diane Cousins Collection Neil Houghton resource for ongoing research in the restoration of Arthur Keller the gardens at Garland Farm as well as for interpreting the history of the property. Scott Koniecko Garland Farm was the ancestral home of Lewis Garland, who had been the Isabel Mancinelli property manager at Reef Point prior to retiring in 1955. His wife, Amy Garland, Diane K. McGuire Howard Monroe was Farrand's housekeeper and cook at Reef Point and also wrote several articles on Lee Patterson horticulture for the Reef Point Bulletins. After Lewis Bruce Riddell Garland's death in 1964 Amy lived in England Lois Berg Stack for several years before returning to Bar Harbor Judith B. Tankard where she lived in a small house on Snow Street Advisors: until her death in 1996. Amy Garland, who was Eleanor Ames born in England in 1899 and came to the United Shirley Beccue States in 1921 to work for Beatrix's mother, Minnie Gilbert Butler Jones, in New York, began working for Beatrix Patrick Chassé shortly afterwards. Contstance M. Clark Judith Burger-Gossart The collection includes many of the photo- Lawrie R. Harris graphs that were used in the preparation of the Tom Hayward Cultural Landscape Report, plus others that have Carole Plenty never been published before. After the collection Annie T. Schwartz Beth Straus has been digitized, the photographs will be available for research purposes in the library by appointment only. Front garden and birdbath. Diane Cousins Collection Editor, Judith B Tankard editor@beatrixfarrandsociety.org copyright © 2010 Beatrix Farrand Society 207-288-0237 Beatrix Farrand Society P.O. Box 111, Mt. Desert, Maine 04660 info@beatrixfarrandsociety.org www.beatrixfarrandsociety.org THE UNIVERSITY OF MAINE AND REEF POINT GARDENS by Wendy Knickerbocker In the 1930s, Beatrix and Max Farrand began spending more and more of their time at Reef Point. They decided to establish a horticultural study center there, and in 1939 they formed the Reef Point Gardens Corporation. Beatrix Farrand wanted Reef Point Gardens to be a teaching garden as well as a demonstration garden. To that end, she sought collaboration with horticulturists, botany professors, and landscape designers at the University of Maine in Orono. The professors brought many students of horticulture and botany to Reef Point, undergraduates as well as grad- uate students and researchers. In November of 1958, three months before she died, Beatrix Farrand sent a check for $100 to the University of Maine. The accompanying note to the university's president read: "Thank you for sending the recent University of Maine Bulletin. The enclosed check for $100.00 is sent with my compliments, to be used where most needed by the University." Farrand's contribution was initially allocated to Unrestricted Gifts, but a few years later it was transferred to Student Aid. The University of Maine Bulletin for the fall of 1958 was a fund-raising newsletter, highlighting some of the university's particular needs, and Beatrix Farrand responded to that request for support. The ties between Reef Point Gar- dens and the University of Maine in the 1940s and 1950s were numerous and enduring. Farrand's donation was tangible evidence of her appreciation of that relationship. Some notable University of Maine faculty and staff members who were involved with Reef Point Gardens are listed below, in order of their initial engagement. (1942) J. Howard Waring (1889-1959) was a professor and Head of the Horticulture Department from 1925-1951. His specialty was fruit trees, particularly apple trees, and Beatrix Farrand asked for his assistance with the fruit trees at Reef Point. In 1942 he collaborated with Farrand in propagating a hardy species of peach tree, grafted on the stock of Reef Point's trees. Several of the new peach trees were planted at Reef Point the following year; they did well, and Waring monitored their hardiness. For the next five years or so, he arranged for students in several horticulture classes to visit Reef Point Gardens and study not only the plants but also the planting designs. After the Bar Harbor Fire of 1947, he inquired about Reef Point's apple trees. J. Howard Waring continued to consult with Beatrix Farrand for at least another year after that. (1945) Joseph M. Murray (1901-1982) was a professor and Head of the Zoology Department from 1934-1940. During that time he served as Director of the university's Marine Laboratory in Lamoine, where he established summer research projects in marine zoology. He also worked with Clarence Little, one of the founders and the first Director of the Jackson Laboratory. Murray was Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences from 1941-1966. The university's School of Biology and Ecology is housed in Joseph Magee Murray Hall, named for him when it was built in 1966. After he retired from the University of Maine, he moved to Bar Harbor. Joseph Murray was appointed a member of Reef Point Gardens Corpora- tion in 1945, and he remained a member until the corporation dissolved in 1962. (1947) Roger Clapp (1904-1977) was a professor of Horticulture and Landscape Design from 1929-1969. He earned his MS at the University of Maine, researching the distribution and hardiness of landscape plants in Maine. He was a hands-on teacher who designed the landscaping for most of the new buildings on campus between 1940 and 1969. The Roger Clapp Greenhouses, currently used for research in horticulture, sustainable agriculture, and forest ecology, were named for him in 1980. Roger Clapp was appointed a member of Reef Point Gardens Corporation in 1947; he resigned the following year. (1948) Arthur L. Deering (1888-1965) was the Assistant Director of the Cooperative Extension Service and the Agricul- tural Experiment Station from 1927-1929 and Director from 1930-1957. He was also Dean of the College of Agriculture from 1933-1957. Arthur Lowell Deering Hall, which houses the Sustainable Agriculture and Environmental Horticulture programs, was named for him in 1957. Arthur Deering was appointed a member of Reef Point Gardens Corporation in 1948. He resigned in 1950, when he accepted a mission to study agricultural extension services in Europe. BEATRIX SOCIETY 8 images of Reef Point were taken by Lyle Littlefield. The images that were dated were all taken in 1949, when Littlefield was a graduate These student of horticulture at the University of Maine. See the following article for more information. Photos courtesy of Bradly Libby, University of Maine. 7 BEATRIN FARRAND SOCIETY NEWS 09/2013 Farrand Page 1 of 3 GARDEN CONSERVANCY eNEWS Preserving America's Exceptional Gardens September 2013 Sign up for Garden Conservancy eNews Become 20 Member Donate Bar Harbor seminar explores latest developments in preserving Beatrix Farrand's historic gardens Bill Noble moderates a panel of the seminar speakers in an interactive question-and- answer session. More than 130 people from seventeen states gathered at the College of Beatrix Farrand, 1943, Beatrix Farrand the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, on the last weekend of July for a Society Archives seminar organized by Judith Tankard, landscape historian and member of the Garden Conservancy's Society of Fellows. "Preserving Beatrix Farrand's Gardens," co-sponsored by the Garden Conservancy, was part Beatrix Farrand (1872-1959) of the tenth anniversary celebration of the Beatrix Farrand Society. The was renowned for applying her seminar brought together experts who have restored and continue to great horticultural expertise to oversee the gardens and landscapes Farrand designed in the early part of the gardens and landscapes she the 20th century. Bill Noble, the Garden Conservancy's director of designed for the cream of East preservation, was one of nine speakers. Coast society. While many of her gardens have disappeared or have been altered beyond For more information on the seminar, see the recent news page of the recognition, a few have been Beatrix Farrand Society and an August 4 review of the seminar from a successfully restored. participant's blog. Dumbarton Oaks and the Abby Over the years, the Garden Conservancy has assisted in the preservation Aldrich Rockefeller Garden of several gardens designed by Beatrix Farrand. We encouraged the remain two of Farrand's most preservation of Garland Farm and facilitated securing the property by outstanding achievements, and receiving contributions on behalf of the Beatrix Farrand Society. The both require scrupulous Conservancy also was an early supporter of the preservation of the management to maintain Beatrix Farrand garden at Bellefield in Hyde Park, New York, and Farrand's original objectives. assisted in preservation planning for Dumbarton Oaks Park in Smaller gardens, such as Washington, D.C. Bellefield, Garland Farm, Hill- Stead, and the Farm House, required extensive research before they were brought back to life in recent years. Dumbarton Oaks Park, the great naturalistic woodland adjacent to Dumbarton Oaks, is just beginning to explore how to reinvigorate an aging, but important, landscape. http://mail-dog.com/page.html?p=000001XDDtjF55EwpicI1a2NW+dVwwmY5xqBM 9/30/2013 09/2013 Farrand Page 2 of 3 For more information on Beatrix Farrand and her influence on American landscape design, read Judith Tankard's book, Beatrix Farrand: Private Gardens. Public Landscapes. The Beatrix Farrand Society purchased Garland Farm, Beatrix Farrand's last home, in January 2004, restored the terrace garden (shown above). and is building visitors' programs and further enhancing the grounds and house. Bar Harbor Open Day features Farrand gardens On a foggy and drizzly Maine morning on Sunday, July 28, the day following the seminar, three Bar Harbor gardens opened to the public as part of a Garden Conservancy Open Day. They included the Farm House, a historic garden restored and maintained by Betsy Mills, who spoke at the seminar about the restoration of this garden designed by Beatrix Farrand for Betsy's husband's great aunt. Two other local Farrand gardens were also open: Kenarden, known for its Italianate garden, and Farrand's last home and garden at Garland Farm. The Garden Conservancy assisted the Beatrix Farrand Society in acquiring Garland Farm in 2004. Despite the wet weather, hundreds of intrepid garden visitors brought out their umbrellas, put on boots, and gamely explored the three gardens. The "squirrel gate" at the Farm House, Bar Harbor, Maine p://mail-dog.com/page.html?p=000001XDDtjF55EwpicI1a2NW+dVwwmY5xqBN 9/30/2013 09/2013 Farrand Page 3 of 3 AWAYAAA The Italianate garden at Kenarden, Bar Harbor, Maine Front entrance to Garland Farm, Bar Harbor, Maine Return to front page > www.gardenconservancy.org Change your preferences I Unsubscribe Privacy policy The Garden Conservancy I Headquarters I P.O. Box 219, Cold Spring, NY 10516 I T: 845.424.6500 I F: 845.424.6501 West Coast I 38 Keyes Avenue, Suite 106, The Presidio, San Francisco, CA 94129 I T: 415.441.4300 F: 415.441.4343 http://mail-dog.com/page.html?p=000001XDDtjF55EwpicI1a2NW+dVwwmY5xqBM2 9/30/2013 10/5/2016 Monograph shares secrets of Acadia's historic landscapes - Mount Desert Islander A photo from the Beatrix Farrand monograph. PHOTO COURTESY OF BEATRIX FARRAND SOCIETY (Printed from url=https://www.mdislander.com/living/monograph-shares-secrets-acadias-historic-landscapes) Monograph shares secrets of Acadia's historic landscapes October 5, 2016 by Earl Brechlin on Lifestyle P in One the real pleasures of the yearlong Acadia National Park Centennial celebration has been the opportunity to delve deeper into the history, background and personal relationships that helped create the park and nurture its growth. In addition to books and lectures providing more insight into the thought processes of George B. Dorr, and his communications with John D. Rockefeller Jr., there is perhaps no relationship worth exploring more than the one between Rockefeller and the legendary Beatrix Farrand, whose talents and skills have left a lasting imprint on gardens and landscapes all across Mount Desert Island. That relationship has been brought to life like never before in scholar Roxanne Brouse's treatise "The Public Spirited Beatrix Farrand of Mount Desert Island," published this year by the Beatrix Farrand Society that operates out of Garland Farm, Farrand's final residence, on Route 3 in Bar Harbor. In the foreword by Rockefeller's son, David, the importance of the pair's collaboration is spotlighted. He writes: "While the study rightfully focuses on Beatrix Farrand and her superlative skills, I am very pleased that the author does not neglect the role of her principal collaborator, my father. "She brings both of them to life and adds important details about a number of other individuals involved in the planning and building of Acadia's impressive network of carriage roads, buildings and hiking trails and the plantings that complement them." In particular, Brouse notes the contributions of William Miller and son Charles, the founders of Miller Gardens in Otter Creek, who worked closely with the pair on both gardens and carriage roads. Rockefeller continues that he witnessed many conversations between his father and Farrand and tagged along on field trips. "They consulted continuously about the smallest detail - the texture of flowers or the color of a wall - in person and by letter, but never lost sight of the larger project." Simultaneous to Farrand's work on landscapes and carriage roads in the park, she and Rockefeller also were putting together the fabled East Asian Garden at the latter's Seal Harbor estate, The Eyrie. References to both projects often are made in individual communications. https://www.mdislander.com/living/monograph-shares-secrets-acadias-historic-landscapes 2/3 10/5/2016 Monograph shares secrets of Acadia's historic landscapes - Mount Desert Islander In all; the monograph makes it abundantly clear that the unique "natural" landscapes and views on Mount Desert Island that SO powerfully resonate with residents and visitors alike often are far from accidental or a fortuitous coincidence of happenstance. They were planned, executed and tended with extraordinary intellect, craftsmanship and love. As David Rockefeller surmises, "This is a study well worth reading not only because of the technical information provided, but it describes the impressive results that can be achieved when two committed individuals work together in a respectful way to achieve a common goal." Copies of "The Public Spirited Beatrix Farrand of Mount Desert Island," which includes numerous photographs, maps and exhibits, are available at Garland Farm. The price is $40 for members, $45 for nonmembers. Copies also are available at www.beaxtrixfarrandsociety.org. Bio fill Latest Posts Earl Brechlin Editor at Mount Desert Islander Islander editor Earl Brechlin first discovered Mount Desert Island 35 years ago and never left. The author of seven guide and casual history books, he is a Registered Maine Guide and has served as president of the Maine and New England Press Associations. He and his wife live in Bar Harbor. ebrechlin@mdislander.com SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL BUSINESSES Shirley's Yarns Crafts & Swan Agency Sotheby's NAPA Auto Parts Ellsworth Gifts International Realty 92 Downeast Highway 677 US Highway 1 43 Cottage Street Ellsworth, ME 04605 Hancock, ME 04640 Bar Harbor, ME 04609 (207) 667-5322 (207) 422-7158 207-244-4348 https://www.mdislander.com/living/monograph-shares-secrets-acadias-historic-landscapes 3/3 Melance L. Simo. Forest and Jacker Troce of Wildness in a Modersizing Land 28924 1989 Charlotterelle: UVA been. 2003. Garden Forest (1888-97) a governed fort culture, ladecopeant forestry servedo a foremage sccent-sts, artists and 76, CEliat, 7 Bather Mauan g B. Joxes By 1900 have forestore land ocage additions had agenged Reiner pof organization our journed Whe do author and culturation overlap? & wildness a quality or a terroin a Whatan th hounderia? Harrow Nothernil. thater (1840- Durate in Serihneis Mag1887 Forests of post saphorization soils - the 'havent of the age the forest began as a cradle, a human hobiest & source of food, yet in how forest because obstacle to grialfars, so destroyed b apat fere to h (1905), stated the 10. 'only the more expanded souls for rejorce Ln the untrodder deserts, the pathless arouds, other mountains that have as trace of culturer' check Henry Uncent Huhbard Simo 2 11. C Eliot secured feNew enford packs, neverways, chorelais of relatively wild landscapes. Elists-maxim Fitness-for purpose is the safe foundation of the out of arrangery land + last craps for the usead exjoysment of me. [Revenue CA. Platt's 547-2 12 Elists withop on Gardert tored reved his appointia firth wild and containable count of Maine reveds his deidair for attempts to make these now materials into a English garden or a Newport lown. p III Chaphs 11-Again, th theme of relationship between environment two Idness - an overlap or crexis tence." [e. 271, n.20. MIS Relanis Sirus. The Conversy f Different forces & Ideas (combange: 2000] r.118 "This linkage of art, + social purpose wa foundamental to th Olastandeen ladaign areletects proba. ILL x Dallas Lore Sharp. Sanctiong, Sometwary N.Y: Harper, 1926. ino-3 Copy pg. 128 Penquin Persons + Pepperminist walter P. Eath. sestion: W.A wilde, 1922. In Berkshire fields NY: Harperborathy 1920. 1936 Boy Scouts on Katahdin wild 9 orders of New Enjourth ch Bernard A. Drew: Eaton's Heander up a old was. Chop. 6: Park makers as forest Managers In Spiny of 1916, FLO Jr. as efforts focustNPS were undering he sow that th public was already using both national packs & advereation grounds. Yet he opposed measure to consultate 2 Tree the administration of team public lands, for the Inupones involved were different Nat afforest set apart for economic end IN recreativaly product Ratied Pack to preserve for the peopa for alltree the opporting of a. peculist kend of edy programed out recreation, not mermable in economic terms ad mater be obtained only from the reworkable ecency which they contain 6 (April 1916): 144. This is echoed or the NPs legislation for 139f. S efferences betwer forester + landocape accidents X B. Dones called the a 'nuseum of trees". W The Debt of Landscupe act to a Messeen of creen," Arbetectomal becord Non 1918,407-408. EllePech 480 Years, 7/3/2019 New Film: The Life and Gardens of Beatrix Farrand - THE DIRT Q New Film: The Life and Gardens of Beatrix Farrand 01/11/201801/19/2018 I Jared Green The Life and Gardens of BEATRIX FARRAND (trailer) from Karyl Evans 02:20 For Darwina Neal, FASLA, the first woman president of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), it made perfect sense that the inaugural Cultural Landscapes lecture at the National Building Museum - a lecture series Neal sponsored and created - would feature a new documentary on Beatrix Farrand (http://www.beatrixfarranddocumentary.com/), the only woman to be among the 11 founding members of ASLA. The 40-minute documentary was created by six-time Emmy Award-winning film maker Karyl Evans. 7/3/2019 New Film: The Life and Gardens of Beatrix Farrand - THE DIRT Beatrix Farrand, who was born in 1872 and passed away in 1959, designed over 200 landscape commissions over 50 years. The film features her most celebrated works, including Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C.; the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden; and the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden in Bar Harbor, Maine. According to Neal, Evans deeply researched "Farrand's life and work - as many of her gardens are being rediscovered and restored - and visited over 50 Farrand sites from Maine to California and Washington, D.C. to photograph the gardens and talk with curators, scholars, professional gardeners, and volunteers." Evans also "conducted research at the Beatrix Farrand archives at the University of California at Berkeley, where she discovered never-before- published materials now included in her film. The resulting documentary is an inspiring film about Beatrix Farrand's challenging life and her stunning 50-year career as a landscape architect." Evans tells us this is the "first documentary ever created about the most successful female landscape architect in 20th century America." It's the story of "the daughter of one of American's most elite families, and how her undeniable talent for garden design propels her onto the national stage." In the film, Evans interviewed the late Farrand scholar Diana Balmori, FASLA; landscape historian Judith Tankard; and landscape architect Shavaun Towers, FASLA. Purchase the DVD or request a screening http://www.beatrixfarranddocumentary.com/). Also, Farrand was the subject of a two-day symposium at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C. a few years ago. Read more from the series of lectures: Beatrix Farrand Gets a Fresh Look 5/20/39 Scrapbarks: Record Bork Max Farrand Memoral 1939 Deef Point gardens Eat. aug 1, 1939. Dy intur history meeting limetes Proprin Reports. he top. 1947-48, 48-49,49-50, 50-57, 51-52, Budget Reports. Repeated ref. to Isobella m Stover, clerk 15 year hunny. (1953-54). may Farrand Memorial Corporation, a separate legal entity. (MEMC) Sering of M Vaughn'toll at Annol lleef of th leff Rt Garde ad M.F.M.C. 8/18/1957 meets held jounty at The garland for 9/17/1958. Bish: keyport Garden Corp. 1947 Verizon Yahoo! Mail - eppster2@verizon.net Page 1 of 3 Verizon Yahoo! Mail Verizon Central Yahoo! Search: Web Search Welcome, eppster2@verizon Mail Home All-New Mail Tutorials Help YAHOO! [Sign Out, Member Center verizon MAIL Classic Mail Contacts Calendar Notepad Options Check Mail Compose Search Mail Search the Web Folders [Add Edit] Previous I Next I Back to Messages Inbox Delete Reply Forward Move Draft This message is not flagged. [ Flag Message - Mark as Unread Printable View Sent Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:24:25 -0700 (PDT) Bulk (1) [Empty] "ELIZABETH and RONALD EPP" Add to Trash [Empty] From: Address Book Add Mobile Alert My Folders [Hide] Subject: Re: Beatrix Farrand DorrBio2008 (26) To: "martha harmon" Eliz messages (6) Dear Martha, Horseshoe Pond Member Information I very much appreciate your offer to peruse series information of possible value Ron Archives (31) to me at the Farrand Collection at UCB. I'll be arriving on MDI on the 8th of September and would like to meet with you at Garland Farm as soon as possible. I'm now free on the morning of the 8th and the 9th. from 9-11:00. Search Shortcuts Will either oif these time slots work for you. Which would you prefer? I can be My Photos reached at 207-288-5809. My Attachments Regard the Farrand Collection my interest centers around the following issues: 1. The Beatrix Jones Diaries for 1891-95. A. Does she say anything about the Mary Calwalader Jones visit to Oldfarm in July 1891 when she left a poem in Mary Dorr's Oldfarm Guestbook? B. Beatrix Jones is listed in the same guestbook for a September 1892 visit which may well be the occasion when she later penned (in 1893?) her diary remarks on Oldfarm quoted by Jane Brown. If you can locate please photocopy in their entirety. C. In the fall of 1893 Jones went with to the Chicago World's Fair. Mr. Dorr visited as well that year. Any reference to him in her diary for that year? 2. In one of Dorr's essays he refers to W.H. Bliss owning a property acquired from William Page at the foot of Champlain (then Newport) Mountain where fires often started due to excess undergrowth. Dorr says he gave Beatrix her first professional job to clear and drain this field, circa 1892-95. The client lists make reference to this http://us.f842.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter?MsgId=4665_9379278_98246_714_3061_. 8/18/2008 Verizon Yahoo! Mail - eppster2@verizon.net Page 2 of 3 effort but I wondered if there might be more information. Patrick Chasse and I have discussed this but he suspects that the incident warrants little attention. 3. Beatrix Jones efforts for the Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association have not been carefully studied. I have gone over the microfilm for the BHVIA and know that her work began about 1897 and that she shortly thereafter took over committee work on Bar Harbor plantings from Mr. Dorr. Do the UBC holdings indicate any interaction between the two? 4. In 1917 Scribner's Magazine published (Vol. 61: pp. 484-494) on "The National Park at Mount Desert," which refers to Mr. Dorr in very laudatory terms and in a language at times which has the stylistic feel of Mr. Dorr himself. Are there any notes in Farrand's hand on this essay? Any corrected page proofs? Any publisher changes? Any correspondence to other parties soliciting information for her essay? 5. Is there any Jones/Farrand correspondence to or from Mr. Dorr, A.H. Lynam, or Ben Hadley? Any mention of the Mount Desert Nurseries which I know she occasionally used for plant stock for Rockefeller's projects. 6. Dorr visited Edith Wharton at The Mount in August 1904, advising her then and later on about the planting of a wild garden, including a path to it which Wharton called the Dorr Path. Does Jones make any rfeference to this in her diary or a visit there at about the same time? I recognize this is not a small shopping list! Please don't let it distract from your own needs. I'll gladly reimburse you for reproduction costs. Have a safe trip and do let me know when it is best for us to meet. With best wishes, Ron Epp martha harmon wrote: Dear Dr. Epp, From August 25-31st I will be be in San Francisco attending the SAA annual meeting. I have an appointment to see the Farrand archives at Berkeley on the 26th. While there I will specifically look for the 1893 information regarding Oldfarm. Is there anything else I can do for you while at UCB? My first available day in Maine in September will be the 4th. http://us.f842.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter?MsgId=4665_9379278_98246_714_3061_ 8/18/2008 Verizon Yahoo! Mail - eppster2@verizon.net Page 3 of 3 With regards, Martha Harmon 44 Riverside Lane Ellsworth, ME 04605 Get more from your digital life. Find out how. Ronald H. Epp , Ph.D. 47 Pond View Drive Merrimack, NH 03054 (603) 424-6149 eppster2@verizon.net Delete Reply Forward Move Previous I Next I Back to Messages Save Message Text I Full Headers Check Mail Compose Search Mail Search the Web Copyright © 1994-2008 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Terms of Service - Guidelines NOTICE: We collect personal information on this site. To learn more about how we use your information, see our Privacy Policy http://us.f842.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter?MsgId=4665_9379278_98246_714_3061_ 8/18/2008 6/6/2019 Xfinity Connect B_ Farrand Reef Point Garden Bulletins Printout Marie Yarborough 6/6/2019 1:24 PM B. Farrand Reef Point Garden Bulletins To Scott Koniecko Ronald & Elizabeth Epp Hi Scott and Ron, thought I would share with you a recent discovery in our collection-- some uncatalogued items that you may find of interest! We have in our possession all but 3 originals of the Reef Point Garden Bulletins, published from 1946-1956 (16 bulletins in total were published as you know), sent from B. Farrand to the notable to Dr. A. E. Brower at his home and including Beatrix Farrand's Reef Point return address... the accession is topped off with a typed annual report from 1947 and a nice, hand-signed letter from her to him--attached. Hope all is well Marie B Farrand August 25_1948.pdf (318 KB) BEATRIX FARRAND LANDSCAPE GARDENER REEF POINT BAR HARBOR. MAINE August 25,1948 Dr. A. E. Brower Entomological Laboratory Hospital Street Auguste, "aine Dear Dr. Brower: You may be interested in reading the report of the year's progress which was given to the members at the annual meeting of the Max Farrand Memorial and the Reef Point Gardens Corporation this morning. Don't trouble to keep it if it is in your way as we cen give it house-room after you have looked at it. With best regards, Yours very sincerely, Peanut famane Verizon Yahoo! Mail - eppster2@verizon.net Page 1 of 1 Verizon Yahoo! Mail Verizon Central Yahoo! Search: Web Search Welcome, eppster2@verizon Mail Home All-New Mail Tutorials Help YAHOO! verizon [Sign Out, Member Center MAIL Classic Mail Contacts Calendar Notepad Options Check Mail Compose Search Mail Search the Web Folders [Add Edit] Previous Next I Back to Messages Inbox (5) Delete Reply Forward Spam Move Draft This message is not flagged. [ Flag Message - Mark as Unread Printable View Sent Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 21:47:50 +0000 Bulk (1) [Empty] "martha harmon" Add to Address Trash [Empty] From: Book Add Mobile Alert My Folders [Hide] Subject: Beatrix Farrand DorrBio2008 (26) To: eppster2@verizon.net Eliz messages (6) Dear Doctor Epp. Horseshoe Pond Member Information Thank you for your inquiry about Mrs. Farrand's Ron Archives (32) 1893 notebook. At the moment I am not sure whether or not we have this in our library, but I will begin my search tomorrow. As you may Search Shortcuts know we are still in the process of cataloguing My Photos and shelving our collection, and inventories remain just that - inventories. My Attachments I will be delighted to meet you in September. Please let me know about your schedule and I will arrange to open the library. Martha Harmon 44 Riverside Lane Ellsworth, ME 04605 Your PC, mobile phone, and online services work together like never before. See how Windows fits your life Delete Reply Forward Spam Move Previous Next Back to Messages Save Message Text Full Headers Check Mail Compose Search Mail Search the Web Copyright © 1994-2008 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Terms of Service - Guidelines NOTICE: We collect personal information on this site. To learn more about how we use your information, see our Privacy Policy http://us.f842.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter?MsgId=4203_6191995_96312_2050_837_.. 8/11/2008 XFINITY Connect Page 1 of 3 XFINITY Connect eppster2@comcast.ne + Font Size Re: Mr. Dorr, Ms. Farrand, & Ron Epp From eppster2@myfairpoint.net Mon, Jul 18, 2011 05:20 PM Subject : Re: Mr. Dorr, Ms. Farrand, & Ron Epp 1 attachment To : Judith Tankard Dear Judy, So good to hear from you! Interesting to hear that Robin Karson found yet another author with whom she could not work agreeably. When did you find the time to complete the work on Gertrude Jeykil? You're amazing! Regarding the Farrand discovery. Here's the tale. I have had the privilege this past year to access the legal archive of the Bar Harbor law firm that began in the 1880's with two attorney's by the names of Deasy & Lynam. Both were friends of Mr. Dorr and served as his legal counsel as well as legal counsel for the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations; also, A.H. Lynam functioned as the assistant to Superintendent Dorr. For nearly a decade I pursued their papers but was informed locally that nothing remained. I had the good fortune to be introduced to William Horner, M.D., a retired surgeon who is the grandson of attorney L.B.. Deasy. After explaining my plight, he made some inquiries (locals can achieve so much more than those "from away") and arranged an appointment with B.H. attorney Doug Chapman, the senior partner in thge firm that was the successor to Lynam and Deasy. Last Spring he opened his archive to us and after several visits I have uncovered scores of unique documents relevant to Mr. Dorr's life. This past May, Bill and I were in the map room (containing hundreds of J.D. Rockefeller, Jr. maps) and on a bookcase was a plain wrapped set of folios that attracted my interest. On opening the brittle wrapping, I found a two volume set titled The Max Farrand Memorial Fund, bound typescript. I must confess that I had only a few minutes to look at this discovery but what I discerned was the an account of the MFMF organization, its mission, its charter, its membership, its projects, its minutes and its activities in securing among other things the publication of The Bulletins of the Reef Point Gardens. While the BRPG presented the public face of Ms. Farrand's efforts to honor the memory of her husband, this may be the singular personal copy of the private deliberations that provided the backdrop for the Reef Point Publications. It appears that the clients of the firm used the firm as a repository for their most valued papers--and many were not well indexed for retrieval purposes. I was so excited by the possibilities inherent in these several hundred pages that I wanted to immediately have you or Marti examine them. But attorney Chapman has been very clear about wanting to keep our inquiries as confidential as possible. For you see his firm also represents the Rockefeller Family and his archive contains no less than a dozen archive boxes of documents attributed to JDR Jr. that appear to be unique as well (that is, not duplicated at the Rockefeller Archive Center or in the National Park Service). Bill Horner has shown this material to the Rockefeller Family historian and there are efforts underway to ensure that this collection remains on Mount Desert Island. http://web.mail.comcast.net/zimbra/h/printmessage?id=3102&tz=America/New_York&xim=1 11/22/2013 ITY Connect Page 1 of 1 XFINITY Connect eppster2@comcast.ne + Font Size Beatrix Farrand Society From : Judith Tankard Fri, Nov 22, 2013 09:17 AM Subject : Beatrix Farrand Society 1 attachment To : eppster2@comcast.net Hi Ron, It was nice to hear from you! You've been on my To Do List for far too long. Firstly, Marti recently told me that she had seen you recently and learned that your wife had died. I'm terribly sorry, but hope you are finding solace in your work. The attached photo was taken in 2010 and published in the BFS newsletter. I also wanted to tell you that my work with the BFS is winding down. After 10 years as a board member and 2 years as vice-president, I stepped down in August 2013. I also resigned as editor of the BFSN. I hope you received the Fall 2013 issue (my last) that lists the new officers. I am currently an advisor and work on the website and any other tasks that come my way. I'm glad Scott is moving forward with the exhibition idea. We had a brief discussion about it last summer, but I've not been asked to be involved. It should be a super exhibition, as was the one Scott put together on the Satterlee property. Meanwhile, do tell me the status of your publication on GBD. I can't wait to see it in print. I don't remember if I suggested you contact Boyd Zenner, environmental editor at Univ of Virginia Press. They recently published a book on Mariana Griswold van Rensselaer, among other topics that are similar to yours. She can be reached at bz2v@virginia.edu Let me know what happens and please stay in touch! Best, Judith Judith B Tankard 1452 Beacon Street Waban MA 02468 617-965-4167 www.judithtankard.com ou have been sent 1 picture. 13. Marti Harmon with Elizabeth and Ronald Epp, June 2010 6-24-2010 10-26-42 AM.JPG These pictures were sent with Picasa, from Google. Try it out here: http://picasa.google.com/ 13. Marti Harmon with Elizabeth and Ronald Epp, June 2010 6-24-2010 10-26-42 AM.JPG 65 KB http://web.mail.comcast.net/zimbra/h/printmessage?id=163460&tz=America/New_York&xim= 11/22/2013 XFINITY Connect Page 1 of 3 XFINITY Connect eppster2@comcast.ne Font Size Re: GBD and Beatrix Farrand? From Rebecca Cole-Will Fri, Nov 22, 2013 07:58 AM Subject : Re: GBD and Beatrix Farrand? To : Ronald & Elizabeth Epp Hi Ron, Many thanks for sending this information along. I am always impressed with your generosity in sharing your research. If you prefer, I could ask Scott to contact you directly about the GBD-BF connection? Again, I'm sorry I missed you last week, but am pleased that Sheridan supported your project without any prompting from me. We are pleased to be the lucky repository for your work. I think this gift would be one that we would want to publicize widely, if you don't mind? I'm thinking that an article in the FOA journal would be an opportunity, as well as press releases, etc. I will be applying for project funds to support the transfer of your collection, to ensure that it is carefully housed and cataloged. warmest regards, On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 9:40 PM, Ronald & Elizabeth Epp wrote: Dear Becky, In responding to your query, I'm copying this email to Judith Tankard in the hope that my remarks might yield a response from Judith to the issues raised by Scott Koniecko. Regarding the Farrand-GBD connection, I've attached two documents that indicate the nature of their relationship. Another is "George B. Dorr on Mount Desert" which Judith published in the Winter 2009 Beatrix Farrand Society News, available online. I'll deal with this topic in greater detail in The Making of Acadia National Park but prefer not to share this prior to publication. As far as I can document, she did not formally engage in garden design for his properties; lists of her garden designs do not credit to her landscaping at Oldfarm. However, in their informal encounters it is hard not to believe that the influence of each rubbed on on one another! An illustration of this involves focusing on the rocky Mount Desert landscape. As Jane Brown points out in her 1995 publication Beatrix, her "own hands-on gardening at Reef Point was tussling with planting around the rocks." In a presentation to the ASLA she states that "the making of a rock garden is probably the hardest problem that can be put before us." (pg. 98). Dorr faced the same issue working on Mount Desert and at The Mount with Edith Wharton. As Brown amplifies quite correctly, both Dorr and Farrand used every walk through the MDI mountains as an opportunity to see how natural forces directed stones, water, and plant life over the ages in ways that promoted and at times frustrated life. This mingling of rocks and gardens might be a suitable theme for centennial celebrations, especially since it harkens back to the 1893 Garden & Forest essays by landscape architect Charles Eliot which deal with the unique climatic challenges of the Maine coast. http://web.mail.comcast.net/zimbra/h/printmessage?id=163440&tz=America/New_York&xim=1 11/24/2013 XFINITY Connect Page 2 of 3 Dorr's relationship with Ms. Farrand's aunt, Edith Wharton, is more clearly demonstrated. I've also attached a copy of my publication on this topic for your files since it bears on the horticultural interests of both Wharton, Farrand, and Dorr. Is it your intention, Becky, to add my publications to your Acadia National Park Resource Management Records?Let me know and I'll provide hard copies of what is germane to your collections. Regarding Farrand and JDRJr., the documentation from the Rockefeller Archive Center has been pretty well covered and integrated into the biographies of Mrs. Farrand. The new edition of Ann Rockefeller Robert's Mr. Rockefeller's Roads adds nothing new to the 1990 first edition. However, there is more useful information in the Reiley & Brouse Historic Resource Study for the Carriage Road System, Acadia National Park (1989) and the impressive HABS/HAER study of NPS historian Richard Quin whose "Rockefeller's Carriage Roads" (see pages 59-63) is now available online from the Library of Congress. Fascinating and unrivaled research throughout!!! Becky, I have an email from Superintendent Steele indicating his interest in having the archives accept from me a donation of resources that bear on the history of the park. I would like to begin this transfer next year, since I will be making frequent trips to MDI during 2014-2015 in preparation for the publication of The Making of Acadia National Park. I will send you in the next few months an estimate of linear space needs to accommodate the resources as a whole. Good luck with your new responsibilities! Ron Ronald H. Epp, Ph.D. 532 Sassafras Dr. Lebanon, PA 17042 717-272-0801 eppster2@comcast.net From: "Rebecca Cole-Will" To: "Ron Epp" Sent: Monday, November 18, 2013 11:47:47 AM Subject: GBD and Beatrix Farrand? Hi Ron, Again, apologies for my no show last week. It seems as if everyone is now planning a centennial project - did you see Jeff Dobbs while you were here? He's working on a film about the 4 founding fathers. I told him to fact-check anything about Dorr with you. I just spoke with Scott Koniecko, Pres. of the Beatrix Farrand Society. He, too, wants to do a centennial commemorative exhibit, focusing on BF's role in park planning. He's looking for material about her and JDR work on carriage roads. But, I also said to him that you had told me about a connection between Dorr & BF - did she do any garden design for him? I seem to recall something about Oldfarm and BF hope to hear from you, http://web.mail.comcast.net/zimbra/h/printmessage?id=163440&tz=America/New_York&xim=1 11/24/2013 1Y Connect Page 1 of 3 XFINITY Connect eppster2@comcast.ne Font Size PS. GBD and Beatrix Farrand? From Judith Tankard Sat, Nov 23, 2013 02:30 PM Subject : PS. GBD and Beatrix Farrand? To : Ronald & Elizabeth Epp Hi Ron, I hope you received my earlier message. It occurs to me that you might want to obtain a copy of the following book if you don't already own it. It contains a complete transcription of BF's Book of Gardening, which you refer to in one of your attachments. It also reprints some of BF's articles in Garden and Forest and other earlier pieces: Carmen Pearson, editor. The Collected Writings of Beatrix Farrand: American Landscape Gardener, 1872-1959 (Univ Press of New England, 2009). Please note that Carmen is not a landscape historian, but specializes in women's studies. As she explains in her intro, she has a slight connection to Max Farrand's family. She wrongly refers to BF as "Beatrix Jones Farrand," a misnomer that I discuss in my own book. She was Beatrix Jones until 1913, when she married Max Farrand and changed her name to Beatrix Farrand. There are no drawings, letters, or other primary documents signed "BJF". It's a small point, but a very important one. Jane Brown gets it wrong too, although she was advised by Patrick Chasse and others when her book was in the works. One more bit, but not for publication: I wrote my book on BF at my publisher's suggestion in an effort to correct all the inaccuracies in Jane Brown's book. Best, Judith At 09:40 PM 11/21/2013, you wrote: Dear Becky, In responding to your query, I'm copying this email to Judith Tankard in the hope that my remarks might yield a response from Judith to the issues raised by Scott Koniecko. Regarding the Farrand-GBD connection, I've attached two documents that indicate the nature of their relationship. Another is "George B. Dorr on Mount Desert" which Judith published in the Winter 2009 Beatrix Farrand Society News, available online. I'll deal with this topic in greater detail in The Making of Acadia National Park but prefer not to share this prior to publication. As far as I can document, she did not formally engage in garden design for his properties; lists of her garden designs do not credit to her landscaping at Oldfarm. However, in their informal encounters it is hard not to believe that the influence of each rubbed on on one another! An illustration of this involves focusing on the rocky Mount Desert landscape. As Jane Brown points out in her 1995 publication Beatrix, her "own hands-on gardening at Reef Point was tussling with planting around the rocks." In a presentation to the ASLA she states that "the making of a rock garden is probably the hardest problem that can be put before us." (pg. 98). Dorr faced the same issue working on Mount Desert and at The Mount with Edith Wharton. As Brown amplifies quite correctly, both Dorr and Farrand used every walk through the MDI mountains as an opportunity to see how natural forces directed stones, water, and plant life over the ages in ways that promoted and at times frustrated life. This mingling of rocks and gardens might be a suitable theme for centennial celebrations, especially since it harkens back to the 1893 Garden & Forest essays by landscape architect Charles Eliot which deal with the unique climatic challenges of the Maine coast. Dorr's relationship with Ms. Farrand's aunt, Edith Wharton, is more clearly demonstrated. I've also attached a copy of my publication on this topic for your files since it bears on the horticultural interests of both Wharton, http://web.mail.comcast.net/zimbra/h/printmessage?id=163720&tz=America/New_York&xim=1 11/23/2013 XFINITY Connect Page 2 of 3 Farrand, and Dorr. Is it your intention, Becky, to add my publications to your Acadia National Park Resource Management Records? Let me know and I'll provide hard copies of what is germane to your collections. Regarding Farrand and JDRJr., the documentation from the Rockefeller Archive Center has been pretty well covered and integrated into the biographies of Mrs. Farrand. The new edition of Ann Rockefelller Robert's Mr. Rockefeller's Roads adds nothing new to the 1990 first edition. However, there is more useful information in the Reiley & Brouse Historic Resource Study for the Carriage Road System, Acadia National Park (1989) and the impressive HABS/HAER study of NPS historian Richard Quin whose "Rockefeller's Carriage Roads" (see pages 59- 63) is now available online from the Library of Congress. Fascinating and unrivaled research throughout!!! Becky, I have an email from Superintendent Steele indicating his interest in having the archives accept from me a donation of resources that bear on the history of the park. I would like to begin this transfer next year, since I will be making frequent trips to MDI during 2014-2015 in preparation for the publication of The Making of Acadia National Park. I will send you in the next few months an estimate of linear space needs to accommodate the resources as a whole. Good luck with your new responsibilities! Ron Ronald H. Epp, Ph.D. 532 Sassafras Dr. Lebanon, PA 17042 717-272-0801 eppster2@comcast.net From: "Rebecca Cole-Will" To: "Ron Epp" Sent: Monday, November 18, 2013 11:47:47 AM Subject: GBD and Beatrix Farrand? Hi Ron, Again, apologies for my no show last week. It seems as if everyone is now planning a centennial project - did you see Jeff Dobbs while you were here? He's working on a film about the 4 founding fathers. I told him to fact-check anything about Dorr with you. I just spoke with Scott Koniecko, Pres. of the Beatrix Farrand Society. He, too, wants to do a centennial commemorative exhibit, focusing on BF's role in park planning. He's looking for material about her and JDR work on carriage roads. But, I also said to him that you had told me about a connection between Dorr & BF - did she do any garden design for him? I seem to recall something about Oldfarm and BF hope to hear from you, Rebecca Cole-Will, Acting Chief, Resource Management Division and Cultural Resources Program Manager ~ Acadia National Park, 20 McFarland Hill Drive, PO Box 177, Bar Harbor, ME 04609 ~207.288.8728 ph., 207.288.8709 fx. http://web.mail.comcast.net/zimbra/h/printmessage?id=163720&tz=America/New_York&xim=1 11/23/2013 XFINITY Connect Page 1 of 3 XFINITY Connect eppster2@comcast.ne Font Size Re: PS. GBD and Beatrix Farrand? From Ronald & Elizabeth Epp Sat, Dec 14, 2013 03:38 PM Subject : Re: PS. GBD and Beatrix Farrand? To : Judith Tankard Dear Judith, After an unpardonable delay, I write to wish you the best for the Christmas Season. I appreciate your suggestions in your most recent email. It took awhile but the Hershey Public Library ILL department finally secured for me The Collected Writings of Beatrix Farrand. Would you perchance have an email address for editor Carmen Pearson? In reprinting Farrand's important essay on "The National Park on Mount Desert," the editorial staff at UPNE failed to duplicate the original, naming "Mr. Bucknam Dorr, ' not George Bucknam Dorr. Also, I wonder if you or any of your colleagues have carefully examined the photographs that Beatrix included in her article (photographs unfortunately intentionally omitted without explanation from Pearson's collection)? Several are included in the copyprint collection at ANP. No serious photographic scholarship has been directed to this collection; nonetheless, in my opinion scores of unattributed prints were taken by Mr. Dorr, including several in Farrand's article. Matters are progressing with the Friends of Acadia. The next step in the editing process will begin in March when I finish my own reading of my manuscript; my last read was more than two years ago when we moved here. I've got some minor corrections, deletions, and additions to made this winter after I finish my article on Dorr and the mountain-naming controversy for the journal of the MDIHS, Chebacco. As I pointed out to Becky Cole-OWill at park HQ, I would review my Farrand resources with Scott Koniecko for the forthcoming centennial celebrations but thus far he has not contacted me. In November I purchased Beatrix Farrand: Private Gardens, Public Landscapes. I've only read through chapter three since it is my bedtime reading and too often I fall asleep. A wonderful work! As you may know, I spent an hour or so with Marty Harmon in November. She told me that she too was putting some distance between herself and Garland Farms, relocating to Washington, D.C., and inviting me to visit her there; S I will be traveling to Maryland frequently to visit other friends. It was not clear to me whether the move was a permanent family relocation or merely a seasonal one, albeit she did complain about the coldness of Maine. I'll be visiting one of those friends in Severna Park (MD) for Christmas, walking the old streets of Annapolis where Elizabeth and I first lived following my completion of graduate studies. The familiar does, indeed, provide consolation! Best Wishes for 2014, Ronald P.S. Do you have Patrick Chasse's contact information? I lost track of him after he left Somerville. Ronald H. Epp, Ph.D. 532 Sassafras Dr. Lebanon, PA 17042 717-272-0801 eppster2@comcast.net From: "Judith Tankard" To: "Ronald & Elizabeth Epp" Sent: Saturday, November 23, 2013 2:30:45 PM Subject: PS. GBD and Beatrix Farrand? http://web.mail.comcast.net/zimbra/h/printmessage?id=168622&tz=America/New_York... 12/14/2013 XFINITY Connect Page 2 of 3 Hi Ron, I hope you received my earlier message. It occurs to me that you might want to obtain a copy of the following book if you don't already own it. It contains a complete transcription of BF's Book of Gardening, which you refer to in one of your attachments. It also reprints some of BF's articles in Garden and Forest and other earlier pieces: Carmen Pearson, editor. The Collected Writings of Beatrix Farrand: American Landscape Gardener, 1872-1959 (Univ Press of New England, 2009). Please note that Carmen is not a landscape historian, but specializes in women's studies. As she explains in her intro, she has a slight connection to Max Farrand's family She wrongly refers to BF as "Beatrix Jones Farrand," a misnomer that I discuss in my own book. She was Beatrix Jones until 1913, when she married Max Farrand and changed her name to Beatrix Farrand. There are no drawings, letters, or other primary documents signed "BJF". It's a small point, but a very important one. Jane Brown gets it wrong too, although she was advised by Patrick Chasse and others when her book was in the works. One more bit, but not for publication: I wrote my book on BF at my publisher's suggestion in an effort to correct all the inaccuracies in Jane Brown's book. Best, Judith At 09:40 PM 11/21/2013, you wrote: Dear Becky, In responding to your query, I'm copying this email to Judith Tankard in the hope that my remarks might yield a response from Judith to the issues raised by Scott Koniecko. Regarding the Farrand-GBD connection, I've attached two documents that indicate the nature of their relationship. Another is "George B. Dorr on Mount Desert" which Judith published in the Winter 2009 Beatrix Farrand Society News, available online. I'll deal with this topic in greater detail in The Making of Acadia National Park but prefer not to share this prior to publication. As far as I can document, she did not formally engage in garden design for his properties; lists of her garden designs do not credit to her landscaping at Oldfarm. However, in their informal encounters it is hard not to believe that the influence of each rubbed on on one another! An illustration of this involves focusing on the rocky Mount Desert landscape. As Jane Brown points out in her 1995 publication Beatrix, her "own hands-on gardening at Reef Point was tussling with planting around the rocks." In a presentation to the ASLA she states that "the making of a rock garden is probably the hardest problem that can be put before us." (pg. 98). Dorr faced the same issue working on Mount Desert and at The Mount with Edith Wharton. As Brown amplifies quite correctly, both Dorr and Farrand used every walk through the MDI mountains as an opportunity to see how natural forces directed stones, water, and plant life over the ages in ways that promoted and at times frustrated life. This mingling of rocks and gardens might be a suitable theme for centennial celebrations, especially since it harkens back to the 1893 Garden & Forest essays by landscape architect Charles Eliot which deal with the unique climatic challenges of the Maine coast. Dorr's relationship with Ms. Farrand's aunt, Edith Wharton, is more clearly demonstrated. I've also attached a copy of my publication on this topic for your files since it bears on the horticultural interests of both Wharton, Farrand, and Dorr. Is it your intention, Becky, to add my publications to your Acadia National Park Resource Management Records? Let me know and I'll provide hard copies of what is germane to your collections. Regarding Farrand and JDRJr., the documentation from the Rockefeller Archive Center has been pretty well covered and integrated into the biographies of Mrs. Farrand. The new edition of Ann Rockefeller Robert's Mr. Rockefeller's Roads adds nothing new to the 1990 first edition. However, there is more useful information in the Reiley & Brouse Historic Resource Study for the Carriage Road System, Acadia National Park (1989) and the impressive HABS/HAER study of NPS historian Richard Quin whose "Rockefeller's Carriage Roads" (see pages 59- 63) is now available online from the Library of Congress. Fascinating and unrivaled research throughout!!! Becky, I have an email from Superintendent Steele indicating his interest in having the archives accept from me a donation of resources that bear on the history of the park. I would like to begin this transfer next year, since I will be making frequent trips to MDI during 2014-2015 in preparation for the publication of The Making of Acadia http://web.mail.comcast.net/zimbra/h/printmessage?id=168622&tz=America/New_York... 12/14/2013 17 chasse Aug!05 Beatrix Farrand A list of her work, made by Mrs. Farrand about 1950. Dr. Robert Abbe Pool, dam and garden, Bar Harbor, Maine Arnold Arboretum Occasional consultant, Jamaica Plain, Mass. Mrs. Walter Ayer Garden, Bar Harbor, Maine Miss Charlotte Baker Garden, Bar Harbor, Maine Mrs. Gerrish Beale Garden, Bar Harbor, Maine Mr. Cortlandt F. Bishop The Winter Palace, Lenox, Mass. Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss Occasional consultant, Casa Dorinda, Santa Barbara, California Mr. and Mrs. Robert Design for grounds and gardens, Dumbarton Woods Bliss Oaks, Washington, D.C. Mrs. William H. Bliss Drainage of field, Bar Harbor, Maine Mrs. James Byrne Design for garden, Bar Harbor, Maine California Institute of Occasional consultant, planting at a few build- Technology ings Mrs. Alfred Coats Design of garden at Bar Harbor, Maine, and Newport, Rhode Island Mr. Thomas Condon Terraces at Tuxedo Park, New York Mrs. Edward K. Dunham Garden, Seal Harbor, Maine Mrs. Roswell Eldridge Design for Garden, Great Neck, Long Island, New York Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Remodeling and planting of grounds, Dart- Elmhirst ington Hall, Totnes, South Devon, England Mrs. Elliott Consultation, Ruxton Park, Maryland Mrs. Shepard Fabbri Preliminary design for grounds, Bar Harbor, Maine Mr. Thomas W. Farnham Town Garden, New Haven, Connecticut Miss Lucy Frelinghuysen Consultant for garden, Northeast Harbor, Maine Greenfield, Connecticut Planting of Village Green, 1896-97 Dr. George Ellery Hale Observatory garden, Pasadena, California Hamilton College Consultation by request of Hon. Elihu Root Mrs. Morgan Hamilton Garden consultant, Table Rock, Sterlington, New York Mr. William Pierson Garden, Bar Harbor, Maine Hamilton Mr. Edward J. Hancy Occasional consultant, Tuxedo Park, New York Mrs. Marcus Hanna Garden, Scal Harbor, Maine Mrs. Edward S. Harkness Remodeling of garden, New London, Conn. Mrs. Edward S. Harkness Planting at Woodlawn Cemetery, New York Mr. Henry Frazer Harris Design for ground and garden, Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania Harvard University Consulting landscape gardener, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. Mr. Harry G. Haskell Terraces and garden, Northeast Harbor, Maine Mr. Henry E. Hatfield Garden, Bar Harbor, Maine Mrs. Morris Hawkes Design for garden, Bar Harbor, Maine Hill School, Pottstown, The Master's Garden Pa. Mrs. Richard M. Hoe Garden, Seal Harbor, Maine Henry E. Huntington Design of grounds for Directors House, San Library Marino, California Mrs. Otto H. Kahn Consultant for gardens, Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, New York Mrs. John Innes Kane Occasional consultant, Bar Harbor, Maine Dr. Francis Kinnicut Memorial stone, Woodlawn Cemetery, New York Mrs. Thomas Lamont Consultant, Town Garden, New York City Mrs. Alfred T. Mahan Design for grounds and garden, Quogue, Long Island, New York Miss Mildred McCormick Design for Garden, Bar Harbor, Maine Mrs. Morris McCormick Design for Garden, Bar Harbor, Maine Mrs. Vance McCormick Design for Garden, Northeast Harbor, Maine Mrs. Gerrish H. Milliken Gardens at Northeast Harbor, Maine, and Greenwich, Connecticut Dr. James F. Mitchell Design for garden, Bar Harbor, Maine Mrs. John Kearsley Design for garden, Rosemont, Pennsylvania Mitchell Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan Planting of Town Garden, New York City Sr. and Mr. J. P. Mor- gan Mr. Henry Morgenthau Design for garden, Bar Harbor, Maine Mount Desert Island Planting and design for grounds, Bar Harbor, Hospital Maine Mrs. James B. Murphy Garden, Seal Harbor, Maine National Cathedral, Wash- Sketches for grounds, with Bishop Satterlee ington, D.C. Mrs. Clement B. New- Design for grounds and garden, Crosswicks bold House, Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, and The Gate Farm garden, Jenkintown, Pennsyl- vania New York Botanical First design for rose garden, Bronx Park, New Garden York New York Zoological Preliminary sketch for development Garden Oberlin College, Oberlin, Consulting landscape gardener for nine years Ohio Occidental College. Los Consulting landscape gardener for eleven years Angeles, California Mrs. Potter Palmer Design for garden, Bar Harbor, Maine Palomar Observatory, Occasional consultant Calif. Dr. Frederick Peterson Town garden, New York City, and garden at Shepaug, Connecticut Mrs. Charles T. Pike Consultations for several years, Bar Harbor, Maine Mrs. John T. Phillips Consultations, North Beverly, Massachusetts Princeton University Consulting landscape gardener for twenty-eight years Design for grounds and planning at Graduate College, 1913 Mrs. Moses Taylor Pvne Remodeling of grounds, Princeton, New Jersey Mr. Percy R. Pyne III Design for grounds and garden, Roslyn, New York Mr. and Mrs. Henry Design for grounds and garden, Northeast Rawle Harbor, Maine Mr. William A. Read Garden design, Purchase, New York Mrs. Geraldyn Redmond Consultation, Tivolian, Hudson, New York Reef Point Gardens Design and planting, Bar Harbor, Maine Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Design for garden, Seal Harbor, Maine Jr. Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt Design for headstone for President Theodore Roosevelt in cemetery, Oyster Bay, Long Island Mrs. Frank B. Rowell Design for grounds, Bar Harbor, Maine Mr. Charles E. Sampson Design for garden and grounds, Bar Harbor, Maine Santa Barbara Botanic Occasional consultant, Santa Barbara, Cali- Garden fornia Mrs. Herbert L. Satterlee Design for garden, Bar Harbor, Maine Mr. Edgar T. Scott Design for grounds and garden, Bar Harbor, Maine; and design for grounds, Landsdown, Darby, Penn. Seal Harbor, Maine Cemetery design Mrs. William Douglas Remodeling garden, Lenox, Massachusetts Sloane Mrs. Edward T. Stotes- Design for grounds and gardens, Bar Harbor, bury Maine Mrs. Willard Straight Chinese garden, Roslyn, Long Island, New York Mrs. Rush Struges Garden design, Shepherd's Run, near Provi- dence, Rhode Island Mr. Roland Taylor Design for grounds and garden, Northeast Harbor, Maine Mrs. Archibald Gourley Garden, Bar Harbor, Maine Thatcher University of Chicago Consulting landscape gardener fourteen years Mr. Clarence Warden Design for grounds and garden, Haverford, Pennsylvania Mrs. Edith Wharton Occasional consultant, Lee, Massachusetts Mr. Edward Whitney Garden, Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York Mrs. Harrison Williams Occasional consultant, garden, Oyster Bay, New York Mrs. Woodrow Wilson Design for small east garden at the White House, Washington, D.C., 1913 Mr. Nathaniel Witherell Garden, Greenwich, Connecticut Yale University Consulting landscape gardener twenty-three years Mrs. Charlton Yarnall Design for garden, Northeast Harbor, Maine Yerkes Observatory Planting at Green Bay, Wisconsin Mrs. A. Murray Young Design for Garden, Bar Harbor, Maine, and consultant Max Farrand Presidential Address (1940) Page 1 of 8 American Historical Association the professional introduction for all historians Home Affiliates American Historical Review I Annual Meeting General Information K-12 Membership Perspectives I Publications Teaching What's New I Contact the AHA Note: Max Farrand's friend, G B. DORR celebrated a The Quality of Distinction variant term distinguished which he used cautiously By Max Farrand and with near reverence. Presidential address delivered before the American Historical Association at New York on December 28, 1940. American Historical Review 46:3 (April 1941): 509-22. When the United States entered the World War in 1917, many of us engaged in the study and teaching of history were depressed by a sense Find Other Presidential of the futility of what we as students were doing, or attempting to do, in Addresses comparison with the more immediately effective service our fellows in other lines were able to render. But today, with large sections of the Find by Year world under arms and even with the United States exerting its utmost energy and stretching its resources to prepare for whatever emergency Find by last name may arise, the situation is very different. Now there is an opportunity for us such as comes but rarely in the sequence of the ages. It might be Keyword search the Presidential better to say that in the present situation there rests upon American Papers: scholarship a great and overpowering duty SO immediate and urgent that no one may ignore it, for the danger that confronts us fairly staggers the imagination, and the opportunity corresponds to the greatness of the Search obligation. President Roosevelt, when he accepted the nomination of the Democratic party last July, described in memorable words the condition in which we find ourselves. As reported in the daily papers he said over the radio: The fact which dominates our world is the fact of armed aggression, the fact of successful armed aggression, aimed at the form of government, the kind of society, we in the United States have chosen and established for ourselves. It is not an ordinary war. It is a revolution which proposes, not to set men free, but to reduce them to slavery. We face one of the great choices of history. It is not alone a choice of government--government by the people versus dictatorship. It is not alone a choice of freedom versus slavery. It is the continuation of civilization as we know it versus the ultimate destruction of all that we have held dear--religion against godlessness; the ideal of justice against the practice of force; moral decency versus the firing squad; courage to speak out, and to act, versus the false lullaby of appeasement. The President was speaking primarily with reference to statecraft and national defense, though he evidently had in mind a wider application. Leaders in the industrial world are anxious about the future of our economic life, and we are bombarded with dire predictions as to what is in store for us. In our own field the danger is the greatest of all, for we are concerned with the intangible; our work is in the realm of ideas. If we have any faith in truth, in honor, in fair dealing, and in the gentler qualities of mercy and affection, we must rouse ourselves to the limit of our powers, for these eternal verities seem already to have been lost under totalitarian rule, and in this country, in the hour of danger, they may be sacrificed upon the altar of necessity. It would be easy, but it is unnecessary, to cite examples. They are reported daily in the press. A single illustration has been chosen that is fraught with meaning for those who look below the surface. The code of behavior embodied in the word "sportsmanship" is not exclusively a British creation, yet the ideals of conduct http://www.theaha.org/info/AHA_History/mfarrand.htm 8/6/2002 Max Farrand Presidential Address (1940) Page 2 of 8 implied therein as developed and exemplified by the British have been one of the great civilizing forces in the Western world, especially during the last one hundred years. Not many months ago it was reported that in the House of Commons a respected member shouted: "Britain needs more 'cads' in official position, more men willing to hit below the belt--willing to forget the Queensberry rules when grave occasion demands it!" A way of life is passing, and the world--not Britain alone--is the loser. When the declaration is made that an obligation rests upon American scholarship and a great opportunity is opening before it, "scholarship" is used as the counterpart of science and the scientific method. There have been many attempts to differentiate the characteristics and the processes of these two great divisions of intellectual activity. Droysen claimed that the world of phenomena could be comprehended under the conceptions of history and nature--the one involving the element of time, the other of space. Some have taken refuge in the simpler classification of science and religion. Dr. Edwin Hubble recently epitomized much of the present-day thinking. In "Experiment and Experience" he distinguished between the public domain of positive knowledge, or science, and the private domain of personal judgments, or values. "Values" he explained as "the standards by which we form such judgments as those of beauty, of good and evil, and of contentment". They "are purely private convictions and on them universal agreement cannot be obtained". He then made the significant admission that "the scientist, like other men, lives most of his life in the world of values". The differentiation reaches down to the depths of human intellectual processes, and there is no intention of entering upon such an abstruse, not to say controversial, subject. The line of division suggested has received wide acceptance and offers at least a convenient working hypothesis. It is given here, only by way of explanation, as the one the speaker has followed and may account for his point of view and method of approach. For his purpose its significance lies in the immediate and inevitable conclusion that the things we are struggling to preserve--summarized, in its day, by the Declaration of Independence as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"--fall within the domain of scholarship rather than of science. Scholarship in the United States has been developed by a process of selection and adaptation--by selection from the best of British and Continental sources and by adaptation to our own needs and conditions. The responsibility and the opportunity are ours because this country alone possesses the resources to realize the hopes and to maintain the scholarly ideals that have become our heritage. Lord Tweedsmuir preferred to have his books published over the name of his earlier years and reputation-John Buchan. Toward the close of his autobiography, Pilgrim's Way, he wrote: "The United States is the richest, and, both actually and potentially, the most powerful State on the globe. She has much, I believe, to give to the world; indeed, to her hands is chiefly entrusted the shaping of the future. If democracy in the broadest and truest sense is to survive, it will be mainly because of her guardianship." There is no escape from the conclusion that the United States is inevitably becoming, if it has not already become, the leading exponent and the chief hope of those parts of the world that believe with us in certain values that make life worth living. American scholarship has a great part to play, and in the world of scholarship historians should take the lead. This is spoken by a student of history to his co-workers in the field and not in disparagement of other subjects. Let us not emphasize the differences and distinctions between the social studies, the humanities, and the various disciplines into which they have been divided. Each has accomplished much in its own line of endeavor. The need today is for co-ordination and co- operation. History offers one method of synthesis, all the more promising because the material used in other fields of study is recognized as historical in its nature, and their results when achieved come within the all- embracing scope of history. The subject of this address, "The Quality of Distinction", was thought of long before the presidency of the American Historical Association imposed its inexorable demands. The address offers nothing of a scholarly nature. It merely embodies the results of observation during many years of study, teaching, and administrative experience. Yet the attribute implied in the title lies at the heart of the permanence we are seeking in the present emergency and accordingly seems appropriate for this occasion. The subject is elusive, but, for the speaker, the "quality of distinction" has a meaning SO vivid that it has come to be a personal belief, a deep conviction, of which he hopes he may be able to convey something to his hearers. He realizes, however, that he may be groping for the expression of an idea that defies analysis. For a long, long time "the world has been going scientific, industrial, middle-class". In that movement the United States, for more than a century, was forging ahead and for the last fifty years, at least, has been recognized as leading in commerce and industry, in standards of living (especially for the mass of the population), and in education for everybody. http://www.theaha.org/info/AHA_History/mfarrand.htm 8/6/2002 Max Farrand Presidential Address (1940) Page 3 of 8 One great problem, and perhaps the greatest problem, of democracy is a double one: to find the proper leaders and, when such have been installed, to inculcate a willingness to submit to the discipline efficient leadership requires. It is little wonder that SO large a number of states, in desperation as it were, have turned to authoritarian control. Many a writer and speaker, in times past as well as today, have expressed doubts as to the ultimate success of democracy, but few have put it SO effectively and picturesquely as the late Brooks Adams, in a letter written early in 1916. You take your social and political creed as a matter of faith and not of reason. You believe in "democracy" exactly as a thirteenth century monk believed in the efficacy of the Virgin. It is with you a matter of faith in humanity, as it might have been to your grandfather faith in Christ. I conceive on the contrary, that the soundness of any social system is proved by its success, and by nothing else. The eighteenth century theory that you are to find salvation in the intelligence of the average of humanity can't be made to work. It collapses like an eggshell when brought into competition with the Roman system, which was administration by selection, and not by averaging downward. Nor can you hope ever, under any circumstances, to obtain administration from a society which administers by debating assemblies. One differed with Mr. Adams's conclusion then exactly as one may take issue with similar ideas now. Such dissent does not demand a belief in the efficiency of democracy but is based upon a recognition of certain qualities that may be developed to better advantage under freedom than under compulsion. Among these are vigor, endurance, and initiative, the last of which frequently rises to the level of creative force. There is a strength and power in voluntary effort greater than any that can be extorted by coercion. At the very time Brooks Adams was writing, the United States was giving an interesting and instructive example of the way a vigorous democracy rises to meet an emergency. His letter is dated January 2, 1916. That was fifteen months before the United States entered the World War, but it was nearly eight months after the sinking of the Lusitania, which shocked the American people and galvanized a few spirits into action. The bill that resulted in the establishment of the Council of National Defense had been introduced in the Senate of the United States several weeks before Adams wrote his letter. The Council of National Defense did not solve the problem of preparedness, but it was an all-important step in the process. Leviathan was rousing itself to action. If the problem of democracy is to find effective leadership and to submit to discipline, the correlative danger is also twofold: of following demagogues instead of competent leaders and of lowering standards. Tocqueville wrote of the "dead level of mediocrity" in the United States, and our people seem to have accepted the description without undue resentment. Quantity production usually means deterioration in quality, whether it be in the factory or in the school--but not necessarily SO. The automobile of today, turned out of machine shops on the assembly line by the thousands, can be and usually is superior to the motor car made by individual workmen a generation ago. Standards have not only been maintained; they have been raised by the employment of expert brains and hands in devising and fabricating machinery to achieve these results. The knowledge and information possessed by many a high-school graduate today is superior to that of the sages of old or even of eminent men a century ago. The amount of education, however, is not the point at issue, but its character and its use. These things have been said so often that repetition seems commonplace. The problem is perennial, not to say everlasting. Each generation approaches it from a slightly different angle or with a change of emphasis, and someone is rash enough to call it new. No sooner is that word made use of than objections are heard, from various quarters that the same ideas may be found fifty or a hundred years or even many centuries ago. To avoid all such criticisms the speaker has tried to say it first. He is quite willing to accept Theodore Roosevelt's good-natured protest, "I am pleased to find that I have plagiarized you in advance." No attempt is being made to consider more than one or two aspects of democracy, and what has just been said upon those seems SO evident that acceptance may be taken almost as a matter of course. If so, the part we have to play becomes clearer. With the selection of leaders, which includes the all-important employment of expert guidance, and with submission to discipline historians as such have little to do beyond recording what has happened in the past. With the maintenance and improvement of standards our concern is exactly that of every other profession and business. The first essential is that the quality of historical production shall not be permitted to deteriorate; and the second--which is the harder task--is to discover, at every stage of the historical process, how the work may be improved. No man can succeed in industry who does not keep a careful accounting, who does not analyze the various processes involved in his particular business, and who does not frankly face the results as shown on the balance sheet of profit and loss. In other words, no man succeeds if he ignores the facts of experience. If he http://www.theaha.org/info/AHA_History/mfarrand.htm 8/6/2002 Max Farrand Presidential Address (1940) Page 4 of 8 does disregard the lessons of the past, he only deceives himself, and the ultimate and inevitable result is disaster. If he makes a report of his business to others and in that report misrepresents the facts, he is liable in milder cases to civil suits for damages and more often lays himself open to criminal prosecution. History is the experience of the race. An accurate knowledge and a correct appreciation of history are essential for the wise conduct of affairs, now and in the future. An appalling responsibility accordingly rests upon those who attempt to record and interpret historical facts. Ignorance is no excuse. He who pretends to interpret history and does SO with insufficient knowledge or with prejudice, even though his intentions may be good, should be subjected to the severest condemnation. There are only two ways in which the results we are all striving for may be achieved: one is voluntary, the other is forced; one is by education, the other is by compulsion. When the alternative is presented as between education or compulsion, there can be no hesitation, for in the United States we have raised education to the status of a religion. Our universities and colleges, and even our public schools, have erected monuments of architecture comparable to the cathedrals of the Middle Ages. A young Jesuit priest, studying in one of our larger schools of education over twenty years ago, is reported to have epitomized the results of some of his observations by saying that in the United States there has developed a "new religion whose God is humanity, whose heaven is the earth, whose sacrament is education, whose church is the public school, whose priest is the pedagogue, and whose name is secularism". There is a blind faith, among the mass of our people, in the efficacy of merely going to school and college that is pathetic and often tragic. Education is only a means to an end, and all education is self-education. Education is, then, the medium through which we are to work, but we should recognize that it is education in a changing world in which methods of disseminating information have been transformed. He must indeed be blind who has not seen, during the last ten or fifteen years, how an appreciation of what some of us are pleased to call "good music" has been diffused in ever-widening circles by means of the radio, in spite of the craze for jazz and accompanying "jitterbugs". A decade ago a distinguished professor of English in one of our great universities listened to a motion-picture star suddenly called upon to address a popular gathering. The lapses in grammar were appalling, and pronunciation and enunciation were even worse. Whereupon he exclaimed in disgust, "What is the use of our trying to do anything in school and college when a popular idol murders the king's English in such fashion?" Today, since the advent of the sound pictures and of an ever more critical radio audience, the popular standards of speech have been vastly improved. There is need for the presentation of history through these channels. Some of our number have been concerned over the failure of historians to enter the field. Perhaps we have been slow to see and seize an opportunity. It may be regrettable, but it was probably inevitable. Few professional students of history have the gift of writing or of speaking in a way that appeals to the popular taste. He who is favored in such fashion should meet at our hands not ostracism and obstruction but welcome and support. This Association has sponsored an important experiment by combining the knowledge of scholars with the skill of one who has the training and ability to present the material thus prepared in an effective and telling manner over the radio for the benefit of a general audience. The promising character of the venture is indicated by the fact that "The Story behind the Headlines" has twice received awards at the Institutes for Education by Radio. The greater bulk of historical production, however, is to be found in written form. Business is a sensitive organism quickly responding to changing conditions. The publisher of books keeps his finger on the pulse of popular interest and offers wares that will attract and sell. Consequently tendencies or trends are more readily observable in the market place than in the seclusion of academic life. For years many historical novels and biographies have been among the best sellers, and one is appalled by the flood of second- and third-rate productions that are pouring from the press. Yet such popular writing has its usefulness if it does nothing more than stimulate interest. Democratic public opinion, however, should be formed on the basis of knowledge that is accurate and compelling. To that extent history is in accord with scientific method. Accordingly we must not permit either writers or readers to be under any illusion as to the nature of the product they are giving and getting that bears the label of history. That is a primary task, but to accomplish it we must ourselves discriminate. The obvious channel for expressing opinions upon the merits or demerits of published works is in book reviewing. There was a time when our learned journals carried reviews that often made the members of our gild blush with mortification. Scholars of standing seemed afraid of hurting one another's feelings. They condoned poor workmanship and lack of ability through sympathy for the author who had done his best. It looked for a time as if the promoter's slogan, "Boost, don't knock", might grow into a national habit. It was a sign of youth and immaturity. Discrimination has come with age and experience. Reviews are better now, but they still leave much to be desired. A recent address at the William L. Clements Library, "Reviewers Reviewed", attracted some attention. Professor Carl Becker, in a characteristic note in the American Historical Review, ventured to differ with the author because he was generalizing upon insufficient data. http://www.theaha.org/info/AHA_History/mfarrand.htm 8/6/2002 Max Farrand Presidential Address (1940) Page 5 of 8 Becker's historical conscience, however, forced him to add that he did not claim that the reviewing of historical books is all it might be. In nontechnical journals too many books are reviewed by critics with an inadequate knowledge of the subject. In technical journals too many reviews are inadequate in substance, deficient in insight, or inexpert in form. But, generally speaking the reviewing of historical books is as honest and as competent as the reviewing of other works of scholarship. That is damning with faint praise. Progress does not lie in the acceptance of such a standard. Our reviews ought to be better. The Social Science Research Council has performed a notable service by setting up a Committee on Appraisal, "to devise ways and means of assaying the quality of completed pieces of research in the various social sciences". The committee's discussions are being printed in full. We cannot have a committee of that kind sitting on every book that appears, although we might wish that published works were few enough and important enough to warrant such a procedure. The establishment of the committee indicates healthful discontent with existing conditions and is an intelligent effort to improve them. Its composition emphasizes the advantages, indeed the necessity, of co-operation because of the extent and variety of knowledge required, in these days, for every field of study. The committee's declared purpose is to "do something to focus the attention of scholars more sharply on the underlying principles of social science and to assist in developing criteria of judgment and standards of performance that would help students to identify good work as well as to produce it". Publishers' representatives travel about the country in search of promising authors. Perhaps it is too much to ask them to refrain from following a way that experience has shown to be "good business". A culpability rests upon them, nevertheless, when they lure the young and unwary and tempt even older scholars to write books for which they are not prepared by the hope of material reward in the form of cash or reputation. There are others besides publishers and reviewers who share in the accountability for the lowering of standards. Among them might be numbered the academic executives who bring pressure to bear upon younger members of the staff to publish, by allowing promotion to depend upon the quantity rather than the quality of the output. We may have reason to condemn publishers. There may be some justice in blaming university and college presidents, but, after all, the chief fault is our own. We are the ones who pass final judgment upon all works of history and near-history. We must make ourselves heard, we must preach in season and out of season, but we must be clear in our own minds as to the doctrine we are proclaiming. There is one phase of popular writing that should not be ignored. It requires ever watchful attention, and, when occasion demands, our protests should be both loud and convincing. The reference is to perfectly honest but unprofessional-and that usually means uninformed--opinion. In a comparatively recent number of the Saturday Review of Literature the leading article was on the relation of the historical novel to history. Therein one might read: "History records; the historical novel re-creates. History is written from the point of view of the present; the historical novel from that of the past. The one is general; the other particular. The former is the product of analytical, deliberative minds; the latter of creative, venturesome ones." The statement represents a point of view that is all too commonly held and may do more harm than a deliberate falsification. No historian can write acceptably of the past unless he has the sympathetic imagination that enables him, in spirit, to live in the time he is recording. Just so, the historical novelist projects himself into the period of his story, but, unless he is wiser and better informed than any that is known to the speaker, the novelist invariably lapses into woeful mistakes. The historian's imagination is restrained by the bounds of fact. The novelist knows no such limitation. He is prone to believe that anything not contrary to the facts may have happened, and sooner or later he injects into actions he is describing things that would have been impossible at the time of which he is writing. He even ventures to give the thoughts of his characters. Who can tell what Washington, Jefferson, or Lincoln thought upon a particular occasion unless he has the person's own statement of what was in his mind? But popularization is not the way of advance in history and education, any more than is the method or machinery of mass production in industry. It is what lies back of both that is important. Progress comes only with infinite toil and labor and usually at the cost of much pain. Even the genius to whom is given a vision of things not seen by others must build his creations upon deep and solid foundations if they are to endure. Progress in manufacturing has been possible largely because, in addition to the multitude of individual experimenters and inventors, our great industrial organizations have kept staffs of experts continually at work experimenting, discovering, and devising new methods and processes. http://www.theaha.org/info/AHA_History/mfarrand.htm 8/6/2002 Max Farrand Presidential Address (1940) Page 6 of 8 There is no intention of making another appeal for research since that is now recognized as a vitalizing factor in all forms of training at the graduate level. On the contrary, a claim is presented for a more general recognition of what has already been accomplished in that direction. Historical investigation is better done and more widely diffused than ever before in this country, and we have reason to be proud of it. The professional historian was far ahead of the recent journalistic wave of popular writers. He was among the first to realize that various hitherto neglected aspects of life and a great variety of factors must come within the scope of his investigations because they help to explain the forces causing men to act as they did in particular circumstances. Popular writers have used that material freely. The historian has used it sparingly. He was not concerned with reaching the public ear. His was the inner compulsion of extending the boundaries of observed and recorded fact. He also realized that it was unwise to attempt to use the newly uncovered information until much more had been gathered and longer study had been given to it. The plea is not for more research but for research of a higher quality; and so, after apparently wandering far afield but in reality disposing of possible distracting considerations, we come to the crux of the whole matter. The facts of history are like drops of water in the ocean or grains of sand on the seashore. They are innumerable. When such vast quantities have to be dealt with, selection becomes a necessity, and with that step we part company from our scientific friends, or, rather, we pass with them into the realm of hypothesis and theory--that is, into the world of values. A memory of childhood stands out vividly. It is of a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, written in formal Spencerian hand. By shading the strokes of the pen on certain lines the engrosser of the document had made a likeness of Abraham Lincoln stand out as if the Proclamation were the embodiment of the martyred President's spirit. Later the historical student has often thought that the document illustrated the dangers and the possibilities of historical interpretation, for the shading of the writing could just as easily have been made to portray the features of Jefferson Davis. Selection of what is important and rejection of the unimportant will be successful or unsuccessful, good or bad, according to the knowledge, ability, training, and character of the student. A word, in passing, upon a single aspect of that training. Much of the historical material we have to use is in the nature of evidence that is frequently contradictory. A whole series of rules for its handling has grown into what is comparable to the law of evidence in judicial procedure. It may be true that historical criticism is nothing more than the exercise of common sense, but the student who is familiar with the pitfalls and has learned how they may be avoided is less likely to suffer mishap than the one who wanders blithely on, ignorant of danger. Let the historical novelist take warning. A story that has become a tradition in one of our universities doubtless has its analogue in many another institution. A student complained because of the grade received on an examination for which he thought he deserved better. The professor in charge selected a typical answer. This was read to the complainant, and then an adequate answer was given by the instructor. The student protested, "I do not see the difference"--t which the obvious response was made, "That is the reason you received the lower grade." At first thought this might seem discouraging; but if the student were made of the right stuff and were earnestly trying to get the best out of the course for his own development and not merely the temporary advantage of a high mark, he would not rest content until he perceived the distinction between what made a first-rate and a second-rate answer. In the days when Calvinism was still a dominating religious force conviction of sin was the first step on the road to salvation. All of us are capable of improvement. When an attempt was made, a few years ago, to formulate some of these ideas before an indulgent group, composed largely of history students, an educational psychologist present objected that the elements composing the quality of distinction had not been analyzed. The intimation was that if they were defined, students might be taught to attain them. Reflection leads to the belief that there is no peculiar element involved. Distinction means nothing more than raising to a higher degree the quality of each process in any action, activity, or work. It may be inculcated by precept, but example is the better teacher. One of the first things impressed upon the student preparing himself for independent study in history is that practically all the material with which he has to deal is in the nature of records or reports made by others. That is, they have already passed through the stage of human interpretation, which means they have been subjected to the variables of personal judgment and taste. Merely to protect himself from criticism by the meticulous, the speaker announces that he is perfectly well aware that a newspaper of 1840, in addition to containing a record or report of the news, is a relic of that period directly transmitted from the past. As such it is an example of paper, printing, advertising, and writing of the time and is being studied by direct http://www.theaha.org/info/AHA_History/mfarrand.htm 8/6/2002 Max Farrand Presidential Address (1940) Page 7 of 8 observation. He is also aware that the trend of modern historical scholarship is towards the inclusion of many aspects of life or living hitherto neglected by students of history, such as painting, sculpture, and architecture, which involve study of the material itself. He repeats, however, without fear of contradiction, that the great mass of material with which the historical student has to deal is in the nature of records. The significance of this is that records lie in the world of values, where, as Hubble has said, there is no calculus of standards. There is no measuring rule universally accepted. What, then, is to be the criterion? Daniel Berkeley Updike, founder and head of the Merrymount Press, in a paper entitled "The Essentials of a Well-Made Book", writes with reference to his own field of work: "How is a man to arrive at a right selection of types? The answer is by a mixture of knowledge and taste. The knowledge must come from a trained mind and experience [and] a right taste is cultivated in printing, as in other forms of endeavor, by knowing what has been done in the past and what has been so esteemed that it has lived." There is the quality that sets the standard for every form of human activity in the world of values and should appeal to the student of history. Anything must have superior merit when, in addition to other admirable qualities, it has stood the test of time. One great class, whose lifework lies in the world of values, has not been mentioned, but it has not been forgotten. Poets, painters, sculptors, musicians--creative artists of every kind, whose chief aim is the revealment of the spiritual--are as much concerned as we over the danger that threatens us. Our cause is one and the same, and for them, as for us, salvation lies not in the acceptance and encouragement of mediocrity but in the maintenance and improvement of quality. C. H. Collins Baker, artist, critic, and historian of art, in an address not yet published, declares that "A great master's expression is born of the marriage of deeply stirred emotion with knowledge." He recurs, again and again, to the same theme--that "In art the quality of rare thought and emotion is inseparable from rare quality in technique." He then explains, in words almost identical with Updike's, that technique is based upon training and experience. The United States is slowly awakening to the seriousness of the present crisis. Group meetings and gatherings of every sort are discussing the same problem, each trying to find a solution in its own way. It would be gratifying, if one had time or opportunity, to dwell upon the importance that is almost universally accorded to the study of history. Our duty and our opportunity spring from the same root. In this critical period, when the struggle is between two conflicting ideologies, two opposing conceptions of life and living, historians are in a strategic position. They are the conservators, in the world of values, of those things that are SO esteemed that they have lived. There never was a greater need than at present for the accurate recording of historical events and for adequate and truthful interpretations of history. The strength and the lasting nature of its influence will depend upon how well this work is done. Recognition of quality, the distinction between first-rate and second-rate, comes from experience and observation. It is not an attribute of youth but of maturity and age. Yet the plea that has been presented--and arises to an impassioned appeal for the development and expression of the best that is in us and better than anything of which we believed ourselves capable--is addressed primarily to the younger generation of historical students. Let them remember that knowledge and ability will not suffice. Training received at the hands of others is not enough. They must school themselves in the methods and practices of selection, which are, after all, largely matters of self-discipline and self-criticism. They must force themselves to eliminate personal considerations SO as to achieve the detachment of the scientist and the scholar. They must cultivate an understanding of the work of creative artists and appreciate that certain elements or principles of beauty and of art are immutable, although their forms and manifestation may change from age to age and vary from generation to generation. Finally, they must recognize that these are all things that cannot be taught; they are a part of one's self-education, and the responsibility therefore rests upon each individual. Scientists, when they credit work with distinction, are apt to refer to the form and character of its presentation, although they admit that products of inferior grade cannot attain such merit. But in the world of values distinction is the hallmark of sterling; it commands recognition by others because of excellence. The quality of distinction raises its possessor out of the common run. It endows whatever it permeates with long life and possibly with life everlasting. At the time of his presidency, Max Farrand was employed as director of the Huntington Library. http://www.theaha.org/info/AHA_History/mfarrand.htm 8/6/2002 instance: it lies in om of matter, pin's point in prisoned a spirit ch will break its the dark ground or SO dazzling as escription. and Garden" Maine Gardens mittee Nature and Design Introduction Deborah Weisgall 3 Time and Continuity in Maine Gardens Paula Deitz 5 Gardens of the Imagination Deborah Weisgall 6 Fletcher Steele and the Camden Public Library Amphitheatre Robin Karson 9 Two Remarkable Women Garden Designers in Maine Judith B. Tankard 15 Maine's Craftsman in the Garden: Eric Ellis Soderholtz Patrick Chassé 17 Edith Wharton and Beatrix Farrand: A Life-Long Garden Friendship Eleanor Dwight 22 Published as on of Conference on conference The Design Legacy of Hans Heistad dens: Nature and July 12-15, 2007 Elizabeth Igleheart 24 gn, Rockland, ME Maine Landscapes Harriet Pattison 27 gratitude to the tions of time and Garden, Pantry, Cold Cellar, Table dvice, and Nancy Harmon Jenkins 36 O Jan Rosenbaum ing the photographs. The Garden Month by Month 39 ment to all the nce possible. Cover: Garden plan of The Settlement at La Croix from Samuel de Champlain, Vovages. 1619. Bv permission of the Svndics of Cambridge University