United States of America -- Connecticut -- Hartford County -- Farmington
Scope and Contents:
The folders include worksheets, a garden plan, photocopies of two photographs of the garden, and photocopies of articles about the garden.
General:
The Gundy garden was created in 1980 to reflect the era of the property's two linked houses of 1697 and 1730. Located in the historic district of Farmington, on property that formed part of the Hill-Stead estate until 1975, the house once belonged to the architect Theodate Pope (later Mrs. Alfred Riddle). She relocated the 1697 section of the house, had it linked to her 1730 house, and opened it in 1902 as a shop, which she named The Gundy, for the students at Miss Porter's School. Her parents moved from Cleveland to Farmington and built Hill-Stead (now a museum) on the hill above for their important art collection. Old and new brick paths behind the house lead uphill on a southeast slope to terraces with boxwood in the center, surrounded by gravel paths and beds of roses, bulbs and perennials. The terraces are set amongst flowering shrubs and trees, including magnolias, viburnums, old lilac clumps, dwarf evergreens, and a ring of matched standard Korean lilacs. A sundial on a stone base and a gazebo copied from a Williamsburg example add to the colonial period effect of this part of the garden. The swimming pool and loggia were built in 1992 to replace the vegetable garden of the 1980s. Warm grey stone is used for the poolside paving, accented by a vine-covered pergola and wall fountain. The owner plants up a collection of handsome containers for the loggia.
Persons and firms associated with the garden include: the O'Rourke family (former owners, before 1896); Theodate Pope Riddle (former owner, ca. 1896-1946); the Hill-Stead Museum Estate (former owner, 1946-1975); Theodore Sloan (former owner, 1975-1979); Michael Cegan (landscape architect, 1980-1982); Green Designs (landscape contractor, 1980-1982); Richter & Cegan, Inc. (landscape architects, 1992-1994); and Frank Volte and Sons (masonry contractors).
Related Materials:
The Gundy related holdings consist of 2 folders (24 35 mm. slides)
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.
Hill-Stead Museum Sunken Garden (Farmington, Connecticut)
United States of America -- Connecticut -- Hartford County -- Farmington
Scope and Contents:
The folder includes a worksheet, photocopies of garden plans and Beatrix Farrand's plant list, a 1999 plant list, and brochures about the museum and the garden that also include plans and plant lists.
General:
The Sunken Garden is located adjacent to the 1901 Colonial Revival mansion, Hill-Stead, designed by Theodate Pope (later Riddle), with plans prepared by the architectural firm McKim, Mead, and White, to showcase the Pope family's important collection of French Impressionist paintings. Integral to the original plan of the country house was its landscape, designed to embrace not only a working New England farm, but also rustic woodland walking gardens and the formal Sunken Garden. Laid out in a natural depression with its asymmetrical boundaries defined by eight-to-ten-foot high drystone walls, the Sunken Garden consists of a summer house surrounded by brick paths and geometric flower beds that are enclosed by a hedge, forming an elongated octagon with grass filling the space between the hedge and outer stone wall. The garden is planted with 75 varieties of primarily perennials as well as small flowering trees and evergreens. At the far end is a stone sundial designed by Theodate Pope Riddle. The Sunken Garden was grassed over in the 1940s wartime labor shortage, leaving only the summer house in place. Today's reconstruction, initiated in 1983 by the Connecticut Valley Garden Club and the Garden Club of Hartford, is based on a planting plan by the landscape designer Beatrix Farrand for the "garden of Mrs. J. W. Riddle, Farmington, Conn.," discovered in the former's archives at the University of California, Berkeley. The Farrand design, dating from 1916, with its careful choice of texture, foliage, and color combinations of perennials (limited here to a palette of blues, pinks, whites, pale purple, and greys) echoes the theories of Gertrude Jekyll, the English garden designer whose work Farrand admired.
Persons and organizations associated with the garden include: Alfred Atmore Pope (former owner, 1901-1913); Ada Brooks Pope (former owner, 1913-1920); Theodate Pope Riddle (former owner, 1920-1946); the Hill-Stead Museum (owner, 1946 to date); Beatrix Farrand (landscape designer, 1916); and Roland/Towers (landscape restorers, 1986).
Related Materials:
Hill-Stead Museum Sunken Garden related holdings consist of 1 folder (11 35 mm. slides)
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.
The Holden Garden at Fox Hall (Farmington, Connecticut)
United States of America -- Connecticut -- Hartford County -- Farmington
Scope and Contents:
The folder includes worksheets and write-ups of the property's history.
General:
The Holden Garden at Fox Hall has three acres of formal gardens designed and installed by the current owners that surround an Early Republic brick house built circa 1803 as a wedding present for General George Solomon Cowles, while the remaining two acres are grassy fields with a circa 1750 post and beam barn relocated from Salem, Massachusetts by a previous owner. The gardens feature 1700 English boxwoods planted in knot gardens and hedges which surround distinct garden beds of peonies, roses, impatiens or euonymus, as well as clipped hedges surrounding the lawn and trees. Some of these shrubs were moved to Connecticut from Virginia, some came from another family home in Connecticut, and some have been propagated from cuttings by the owners. The colors pink and white predominate in the selection of flowering trees, shrubs and annuals. A custom designed white picket fence was installed along the front of the property, which is entered through an antique Georgian/Federal pediment supported by columns, originally installed in Newport, Rhode Island.
The gardens were designed to be visually interesting during the entire year, including the snowy winter months. The evergreen boxwood knots and hedges, along with a circa 1880 European fountain and benches, a juniper topiary garden and a pinetum with several different species provide the winter bones.
The General George Cowles house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. The previous owner, James McA. Thomson gave the two-acre field portion of the property to the Farmington Land Trust so that it would remain in private hands and not be subdivided. Historic New England also oversees the property, controlling renovations to the house and prohibiting commercial uses; however the current owner have creative control of their gardens.
Persons associated with the garden include General George Cowles and members of the Cowles family (former owners, 1803-1907); Theodate Pope Riddle (former owner, circa 1902-?); Mrs. Marjorie L. Sage (former owner, circa 1940-1963); James McA. Thomson (former owner, 1963-circa 1992).
Image caption at the Connecticut Historical Society incorrectly identifies the house as having been built by General George Cowles as a wedding gift to his daughter. The home was built by the parents of General Cowles as a wedding gift to him.
Related Materials:
The Holden Garden at Fox Hall related holdings consist of 1 folder (34 digital images)
Additional photographs are located in the Graphics Collection, of the Connecticut Historical Society.
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.
Letters to Cassatt, from Cassatt, and from and to Cassatt's family and others; a typescript of a family history written by Cassatt's father, and other genealogical and biographical material; and pages from Paris Salon exhibition catalogs of 1872-1876 referencing Cassatt. The materials were primarily in the possession of Art Institute of Chicago curator Frederick Sweet at the time of microfilming; Sweet coordinated the microfilm project with the then newly formed Archives of American Art. The microfilm also identifies the owner at the time of microfilming (1955) and some of Sweet's correspondence concerning permission to microfilm from the various owners.
Among the recipients of letters from Cassatt are Cecilia Beaux, Electra Havemeyer Webb, Mrs. Potter Palmer, Theodate Pope, Mary Gardner Smith, Carroll S. Tyson, Ambroise Vollard, Harris Whittemore, her nephew Robert Kelso Cassatt and his wife Minnie Drexel Fell Cassatt; her sister-in-law Jennie (Mrs. J. Gardner Cassatt); and others. [Microfilm label: Frederick A. Sweet papers]
Provenance:
Lent for microfilming in 1955 by Frederick Sweet, author of the exhibition catalog Sargent, Whistler, and Mary Cassatt (1954) and Miss Mary Cassatt, Impressionist From Pennsylvania (1966). The owners of the letters at the time of microfilming are listed on the microfilm and the inventory. Letters and the typescript family history filmed on CI frames 1-869 were subsequently donated by their owner Mrs. John B. Thayer of Rosemont, Pa. to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1967, and letters from Cassatt to her nephew Robert Kelso Cassatt that were lent by Mr. Alexander Cassatt, Robert's brother in 1955, were subsequently donated to the Archives of American Art in 1986 by Alexander's son, also named Alexander Cassatt (microfilm reel 3684).
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Rights:
Authorization to publish, quote or reproduce requires written permission from the owners of the letters. [Frames 1-869 owned by Philadelphia Museum of Art] Contact Reference Services for more information.
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Painters -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia Search this
