Digging Deeper: The History of Wethersfield Estate & Garden and How It's Responding to Beech Tree Blights

Wethersfield Estate & Garden

Sun, Jun 23, 2024
10:00 AM

In 1937, Chauncey Devereaux Stillman purchased two contiguous abandoned farms comprising several hundred acres for use as a summer estate. He built a Georgian-style house designed by Bancel LaFarge at the highest point on the property, overlooking the Taconic Range, the Berkshires, and the Catskills.

Adjacent to the house, he installed a series of garden rooms designed by landscape architect Brian Lynch that include terraces, lawns, mixed borders, a pleached bower, a tea house, a pergola, and a rill. Between 1947 and 1989, landscape architect Evelyn Poehler expanded the gardens to 3 acres, creating a strong axial arrangement with various follies and statuary. A 190-foot-long arborvitae allée runs south to north connecting a fountain with motifs from Greek mythology to an oval reflecting pool. A second axis, also originating in the inner garden from the dining room, runs westward, moving through a formal garden room with rows of topiary. Overlooking the garden to the north is a balustraded terrace set on a shale wall. Scattered architectural features include a belvedere and a Palladian arch. Poehler also designed a 7-acre woodland garden, employing a plant palette comprising mostly native species, in the style of an Italian Renaissance bosco. Sculptures of mythological figures by artists Peter Watts and Josef Stachura are placed along trails and carriage roads.

Maintained by the Wethersfield Foundation since 2017, the house and gardens, along with bordering agricultural fields and forests, make up the 1,000-acre estate. The agricultural landscape includes windbreak plantings, field diversions, open drains, retention ponds, and wildlife borders—all part of an extensive reforestation effort led by the New York State Conservation Department (now Department of Environmental Conservation) beginning in the 1940s.

We invite you to come, dig deeper into the history of Wethersfield Estate & Garden and learn how Wethersfield is responding to the various Beech Tree blights impacting historical features in the formal garden.

Location:
Wethersfield Estate & Garden
Amenia, NY

Date and Time:
Sunday, June 23
10:00 a.m.