United States of America -- New York -- Nassau County -- Old Westbury
Scope and Contents:
The folder includes worksheets, landscape architect's drawings and additional images.
General:
The 1922 Georgian Revival house and 29 acre estate (first called Gay Gardens) has gardens designed in different eras by Ellen Biddle Shipman in the 1920's, Umberto Innocenti in the 1930's and 1940's, and most recently by Oehme van Sweden starting in the late 1990's. Shipman designed a sunken grass garden surrounded by a yew hedge off to the side of the house with formal flower beds with yew or beech hedges, and more flower beds on the terraces. She placed a square stone reflecting pool in the center of the sunken garden. In the 1930's Innocenti moved the stairs to the sunken garden and removed Shipman's pool, adding a lozenge-shaped pool beyond the sunken garden with an open sightline from the house. He also designed an oval swimming pool with plantings (later replaced by a rectangular pool). In the 1940's Innocenti & Webel redesigned the front courtyard and surrounded the new tennis court with beech trees. Under the current owners landscape architects Oehme van Sweden designed a large pond with native plants and a recirculating water system that includes a waterfall and stream, added white pebbles to the driveway and pleached the beech around the tennis court.
Boxwood Farm has four acres of lawn interspersed with mature maple and other trees and huge flower beds. Perennial flowers include Russian sage, buddleia, lavender, ligularia, liriope, echinacea, penstemon, rudbeckia, Joe Pye weed and ornamental grasses; shrubs include boxwood, hydrangea, azalea, viburnum and knock-out roses. Ficus trees are planted out each year near an antique wall fountain in a small garden room of the patio, then dug up and kept in the greenhouse over the winter. An adjoining small room has a sundial, stellata magnolia and hydrangea. The lawn to the south of the house is intersected with stone pathways that divide it into diamond and triangular patches. Numerous stone planters are filled with lavender and agapanthus or white lantana in the summer and violas in cooler seasons. There is a raised garden surrounded by a picket fence set on a low dry stone wall that has a wooden grape arbor and boxwood parterres filled with white tulips, dwarf alliums, cardinal flowers, salvia, apple mint and strawberry plants, depending on the season. In a nearby 15 by 21 foot raised garden vegetables and flowers for cutting are grown. Another vegetable and fruit garden was added in the service area, once the site of another house on the original 179 acre estate. Woodland gardens border the driveway and a bridle paths recalls the polo matches held on the property in a previous era.
Persons associated with the garden include Hugh A. Murray and estate of (former owners, 1922-circa 1935); Catherine B. Hickox (former owner, 1935-1970); Charles V. Hickox and estate of (former owners, 1970-circa 1982); Paul Guez (former owner, circa 1982-circa 1989); GOV agencies (former owners, circa 1990-1997); Julian Peabody (1881-1935) of Peabody, Wilson & Brown (architect, 1922); Ellen Biddle Shipman (1869-1950) (landscape architect, 1922); Umberto Innocenti (1895-1968) (landscape architect, 1937- ); Innocenti & Webel (landscape architects, 1946-1970); Charles A. Parr (superintendent, late 1930's-1950's); Bradley Delahanty (architect of pool house, 1947-1950); Oehme, van Sweden & Associates (landscape architects, 1998- ); James Ahern (estate manager, 2008- ).
Related Materials:
Boxwood Farm related holdings consist of 1 folder (27 digital images; 3 digital prints)
Additional materials also located in Archives of Ellen Biddle Shipman at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
Collection Restrictions:
Access to original archival materials by appointment only. Researcher must submit request for appointment in writing. Certain items may be restricted and not available to researchers. Please direct reference inquiries to the Archives of American Gardens: aag@si.edu.
Collection Rights:
Archives of American Gardens encourages the use of its archival materials for non-commercial, educational and personal use under the fair use provision of U.S. copyright law. Use or copyright restrictions may exist. It is incumbent upon the researcher to ascertain copyright status and assume responsibility for usage. All requests for duplication and use must be submitted in writing and approved by Archives of American Gardens. Please direct reference inquiries to the Archives of American Gardens: aag@si.edu.
Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Gardens, The Garden Club of America collection.
Sponsor:
A project to describe images in this finding aid received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care Initiative, administered by the National Collections Program.
