I RISKED MY LIFE TO TAKE THIS PHOTOGRAPH

No, seriously, I really did, although undeniably the bar lowers for what can be considered dangerous risk in late middle age.  No derring-do on ocean sailing boats, no climbing of sheer cliffs.  No, what I did was merely park illegally for five minutes and stand in a narrow traffic island in the middle of speeding commuter traffic (those suburbanites do love to drive their Audis at inappropriate speed in inappropriate locations) on Rte. 9 in Scarborough New York, all in order to photograph this amazing gate, which I've admired for years.  No false modesty about the builder of this Brobdingnagian construction.

I spent three days last week in the Tarrytown region of the Hudson Valley, researching various Maine homes of a certain family who,  after striking it rich in oil, loaded up their truck and moved to the Hills of Pocantico.  The Hudson valley has always been one of my favorite outings, combining as it does world class scenic grandeur, a romantic history and one of the country's great and varied collections of domestic architecture.   Despite the steady march of Dry-Vit and office parks, the Sleepy Hollow neighborhood around Tarrytown and Scarborough in the lower valley still offers much to see, not the least of which is this dramatic gate on Broadway, as the confusing network of routes 9 are often known on their run up the valley.

It is the former entrance to Beechwood, an estate originally dating to the 18th century.  The gates were commissioned in the early 20th century by the estate's then owner, Frank Vanderlip, one of the powers behind First National City Bank.  His architect was Rockefeller family favorite William Welles Bosworth, a Beaux Arts trained designer with a special talent for cold, cerebral evocations of the drama of ancient Rome and Greece.   For the reader who has never passed these gates, it should be mentioned that the scale is imperial.  Although the beautiful Grecian inspired iron gate is kept low to increase the dramatic effect, low in the case is actually around eight feet high at the crest, and the superb columns, rescued from a great demolished 19th century New York building---I once knew which, the answer now eludes me---are well over twenty feet.  Mr. Vanderlip must have felt like an emperor, or more aptly, Croesus, when he arrived home after a hard day of counting piles of money.

Although the gate is abandoned, the estate itself is condominums, and kept in good order, including the Roman gardens and pool added by Vanderlip, also designed by Bosworth.  The house, originally a relatively simple structure built in the 18th century, was repeatedly enlarged through the 19th and 20th centuries, is one of those places where degrees of separation abound.   The estate was purchased in the late 19th century by H. Walter Webb, a vice president of the New York central, whose brother, Seward, married the boss's daughter Lila, whose sister Margaret Vanderbilt Shepard owned the estate across the street by McKim, Mead & White, now the Sleepy Hollow Country Club.  Webb's widow, Leila Griswold, married Edith Wharton's partner in decorating crime, the confirmed bachelor Ogden Codman, whose first big  job had been for Margaret Shepard's and Lila Webb's brother Cornelius in Newport.  And so it goes.  

 The early Vanderlip years in the 20th century were the estate's most most glamorous era.  Intellectually inclined, Narcisse and Frank Vanderlip built a Montessori school and private theater (above) also designed by Bosworth, on the grounds for their and the neighborhood children.  The students later came to include those of John Cheever, who rented a charming studio house on the estate in the mid-20th century (Susan Cheever would return there briefly as a teacher).  

By the 1970's, semi-abandoned, the mansion itself became the setting for Merchant-Ivory's first production, Savages.  As with all their movies, the set is the star, and James Ivory's memory of that shoot (click HERE, pg.7) is worth a read.

Present day views of Beechwood, and the rotunda library and ballroom added by Bosworth, via Zillow

UPDATE 1:  An esteemed and ancient reader with sharp eyes sends THIS LINK to a Gant commercial filmed at Beechwood.  Would that I looked so lean and fit in my seersucker jacket :-(

UPDATE 2:   One of the pleasures of blogging is that if I don't know it, surely a commenter will (thank-goodness).   The columns, whose origin I couldn't remember, were salvaged from the old New York Customs House designed by Isiah Rogers at 55 Wall Street in 1836-42.  After the Customs house removed to Bowling Green, the building was taken over by Vanderlip's National City Bank, remodeled by McKim Mead & White.  Vanderlip had two of the columns, four stories high and turned from single blocks of Quincy granite  Think about what I just wrote.  Single pieces of granite.  Not the pyramids, perhaps, but a fairly huge engineering feat for the time..   No less amazing is that two stories of the columns' height is buried below ground in their current location.

OLMSTED AND A GATE

This gate is a footnote in landscape history.  Subtle, deceptively simple, it is only as one examines it that one realizes how good it really is.  It is the main entrance to "Point d'Acadie," the long demolished George Vanderbilt estate at Bar Harbor.  Like all of his family, Vanderbilt was an inveterate builder, and in 1889, even as he was acquring the 146,000 acres of North Carolina that would become the Biltmore estate, he had Frederick Law Olmsted at work landscaping this smaller (by Vanderbilt standards) project at Bar Harbor.  Olmsted's work at "Point d'Acadie," a prelude to his final great work at Biltmore, would include new roads, carefully composed clearing and tree plantings, a new stone terrace and stairs that would enhance the transition of the large shingled house to the landscape, and the damming of a small cove to be used as a naturalistic swimming pool, Bar Harbor's first, complete with rustic Adirondack style cabanas.  All this even as George Vanderbilt was embarking on the largest private building project of the era at Biltmore.  The site of "Point d'Acadie," which Vanderbilt had purchased for the then large sum of $200,000 (Approximately $7,000,000 in today's dollars) is a spectacular little Peninsula jutting into Frenchman's Bay, views of water and mountains on all sides.  

Later highway construction has partially submerged the gate, but it is nevertheless a classic example of Olmsted's approach to designed elements in the landscape, subtle, with materials and shapes carefully considered in relation to the landscape.  The sweep is broad and gentle, the granite coping carefully rounded and shaped.  It is almost in rebuke to the massive Beaux Arts gate of Vanderbilt's  neighbor, railroad tycoon John Stewart Kennedy of "Kenarden Lodge" (below).

 The driveways at "Point d'Acadie," carefully constructed to Olmsted's exacting specifications, although today not maintained to the manicured, raked daily, standards of the Vanderbilt era, have rarely needed major work since.  

The terraces of "Point d'Acadie" with their broad shallow stairs to the lawns, with stonework and coping matching that of the gate, were similar to other examples by Olmsted, and typify his approach to integrating house and landscape.  The terraces survived for many years after demolition of the house---I regret never having photographed them.

After the house was demolished, the lawns, seen above in the 1920's looking across to the Kennedy estate on the next point, were left to meadow, which probably would have pleased Olmstead, and the effect of nature, as enhanced by Olmsted, was gorgeous. 

Vanderbilt's naturalistic swimming pool started something of a trend at Bar Harbor, and several other estates featured them.  Above is are early spring views from the ruined cove side pool (nature reclaims her own) at "Old Farm," the George Dorr estate, looking across to "Point d'Acadie."  

In recent years a new house was built on the "Point d'Acadie" site, which is private property.  Old Farm is now part of Acadia National Park, which was founded by Dorr.

"THIS GARDEN WAS MADE IN 1901 AND NAMED WELD"

So reads an inscription on a garden wall at the subject of today's post.  I warn the reader, that though the text runs under 700 words, there are over 20 pictures, so lush the material available to illustrate this story--and what point a blog if not to be able to well illustrate a point?

One who read the January 19th post about Faulkner Farm, the Sprague/Brandegee estate and garden at Brookline, Massachussets, may experience a sense of deja vu, for the outlines of the two stories are more than a little similar:  An heiress granddaughter of Boston shipping magnate William Fletcher Weld marries, buys a hilltop estate on ancestral land in Brookline from a cousin, hires Charles Adams Platt to design a garden that becomes one of the most famous of its time, and has architect Herbert Browne enlarge the already large house. It does all have a rather familiar ring, doesn't it?  Now for the ways in which the story is different...

Isabel and Larz Anderson, by Philip de Lazlo (collection of Society of the Cincinnati)

Isabel Weld Perkins was born in 1877, and was the first cousin of Mary Pratt Sprague of Faulkner Farm, born 6 years earlier.  In 1897 Miss Perkins married Paris-born diplomat Larz Anderson, a grandson of Nicholas Longworth of Cinncinnati (as was the husband of Alice Roosevelt).  In 1899, the Andersons purchased the 64 acre estate of her cousin, William Weld.  In 1901, casting an admiring, or perhaps envious (history doesn't record which) eye on the famous garden that Charles Adams Platt had designed for her cousin on the next hilltop, a mere half-mile away, she hired the now famous architect to design a garden for her estate, which she named 'Weld' after her grandfather.  This garden, more elaborate than the garden at Faulkner Farm, was no less a sensation, and joined it as one of the most published and influential landscapes of the early 20th century---the formal gardens by which all others would be judged.

A photograph of Charles Adams Platt's model of a preliminary design  for the new garden at Weld (Architectural Record)

The plan of the garden as executed.  The house was at bottom of this plan

The completed garden

His commissions for the Weld cousins were unusual in the Platt oeuvre, as both involved pre-existing houses.  In most of his work, Platt designed both house and garden, with perfect integration between outdoors and indoors.  The Anderson garden at Weld was further unusual in that it was not visible from the house, unlike the garden at Faulkner Farm, but rather accessed across the bowling green that fronted the house, and thence by paths that approached the garden from the side.  The main garden was built on a terrace pushed out from the hillside, and featured a center panel of grass, flanked by parterres, and surrounded by terraces that effected changes in levels and vistas.  As at Faulkner Farm, a king's ransom in antique Italian sarcophagi, urns and columns ornamented the garden.  Accompanying the main garden were the usual complement of cutting garden, a rock garden, greenhouses, nursery gardens, wild gardens, and an allee.   At the base of the hill lay a private polo field, and between it and the main gate on Newton Street, was  an ornamental lake, with bridges and a domed temple at its head.  In a generous civic gesture, the high stucco wall that sheiled the estate from the road was pierced with an elegant wrought iron screen to give passers by a vista of this Arcadian scene

 Two views of the lake as it appears today

The Andersons now turned their eye briefly toward Washington, where they intended to spend half the year for Mr. Anderson's diplomatic career.  They hired Herbert Browne, the architect of the main house at Faulkner Farm, to design a large townhouse based on early 18th century London precedents.  As with  many of Browne's works, it displayed the same bold juxtapositions of scale and liberty with details that characterized his style.

The entrance court of the Anderson's Washington town house (HABS)

Garden front of the Washington house (HABS)

The Washington house completed, the Andersons dispatched Browne back to Brookline, where a new brick wing in Baroque style was added, becoming the main facade on the garden side.  Supposedly, the new wing was modeled after Lulworth Castle.  This viewer does not see the resemblance. At any rate, not yet 30, Isabel Anderson was mistress of two of the grandest establishments in America.

 The main house at Weld as it appeared when purchased by the Andersons (Digital Commonwealth)

The same view after addition of the new wing fronting the bowling green (Smithsonian Library of American Gardens)

The new wing from the bowling green (Museum of Transportatioin)

 Two views of the library (Museum of Transportation collection)

The Brighton Pavilion and 18th century Dresden have an uneasy meeting in the ballroom.

A garden room overlooking the library had murals likely by George Porter Fernald, a frequent collaborator with the architect.

Larz Anderson was appointed Ambassador to Japan in 1912.  Their time there was to have a profound effect on the Andersons, and upon their return to America, Weld was to receive a layer of Japanese art and gardening to add to its Beaux Arts splendors.   A large bronze eagle that had been in their garden in Tokyo was installed in a new Japanese garden built adjacent to the cutting gardens.  A room in the house was sheathed in simple Japanese style (although retaining its baroque mantel), and a superb collection of Bonsai was housed in one of the conservatories (this collection is now at the Arnold Arboretum in neighboring Jamaica Plain).

The Japanese Garden, top, and Bonsai collection, bottom

Life continued along pleasantly, glamorously, for the Andersons.  Isabel published memoirs of their world travels, Larz retired in 1913 from Diplomatic service, and they devoted their time to philanthopic affairs.  The Depression seems to have been little felt by them.  Larz Anderson died in 1937, and Isabel in 1948.  They were childless, and with no children to carry on their estates (or even sell and subdivide them), Mrs. Anderson left the Washington house to the Society of the Cincinnati, which maintains it in superb condition as a house museum and headquarters.  With equally good intentions, she left Weld, and all its contents, from personal papers and furnishings to the 16 cars  in the garage, to the Town of Brookline, for the enjoyment of the public.

 The carriage house and garage at Weld, now the Museum of Transportation

It is likely that Isabel Anderson's concept of public enjoyment was a more genteel one than the one that emerged.  She doubtless pictured the house and its collections open to public view, and the lovely grounds available for public strolls and picnics.  The 1950's were a bad time for great houses and gardens, however, and the Powers That Be in Brookline had a few ideas of their own.  The polo field was replaced by a baseball diamond--no harm there, and doubtless more democratic.  The huge carriage barn and garage, with the Anderson's 45 year's worth of elegant cars became an auto museum.  The ornamental lake remained much the same.  The house did not fare so well.  Totally neglected by the early 50's, it's collections were dispersed, and the house demolished.  Next to go were the gardens, also neglected.  In a spectacularly ignominious act, they were partially demolished in favor of the most elegantly sited ice rink in America.  It is hard to begrudge the happy citizenry their hockey rink, clearly much loved and muh used, but equally it is undeniable that to build it there can only be construed as a wanton act of vandalism.  There were other flat spots on the property, and no doubt other flat spots in public ownership elsewhere in Brookline.  One can only imagine the planning meetings----'man, that sunken garden sure would make a great ice rink---we'll just get rid of some of that old statuary, bring in a bulldozer, and Bob's your uncle!.'

Plan of the estate.  House and main garden at center (Museum of Transportation)

And approximately the same view today, with skating rink in formal garden, and steel maintenance sheds in cutting and kitchen gardens.

And in case you missed it, the hockey rink

Sad, very sad. Following are pictures of the garden in its heyday.

Entrance to the Bowling green

Exedra bench on the Bowling green

 Views of the main garden, now ice rink.

 Cutting garden

THE END

For the companion post about Faulkner Farm, click HERE