The Trustees of Reservations has just completed Phase 1 of an extensive 5-phase, 3-year, $3 million garden and landscape restoration project designed to rejuvenate Naumkeag’s gardens. The transformation is remarkable, the most noticeable being the renovation of Fletcher Steele’s iconic Blue Steps — one of the most photographed garden features in 20th-century American landscape design — which are celebrating their 75th Anniversary this summer. More information can be found here and a few photos are below: http://www.thetrustees.org/about-us/press-room/naumkeag/naumkeag-restoration.
Naumkeag is a National Historic Landmark located in Stockbridge which is visited by thousands of garden, landscape and history enthusiasts each year. Formerly owned by the Choate Family of New York before it was bequeathed to The Trustees in 1958, Naumkeag is a 44-room Berkshires “Cottage” from the Gilded Age is filled with arts, antiques and collections around from around the world. It is also one of the only remaining intact cottages from this time period open to the public. Naumkeag’s gardens are a masterpiece of 30 years of collaborative, creative work by former owner, Mabel Choate, and her dear friend, Fletcher Steele — America’s first, modern landscape architect. Featuring a series of unique garden rooms and described by the Library of American Landscape History as a “playground for the imagination” Naumkeag’s gardens are one of the nation’s finest examples of early American Modern landscape architecture and a rare surviving example of the work of Fletcher Steele still open to the public.
The Cultural Landscape Foundation is holding it’s “What’s Out There in the Berkshires Weekend” on 9/21 22 offering free tours of two dozen beautiful spots which could be a good time to come out and tour some other properties – and the fall foliage is gorgeous at that time of year too. More info here: http://tclf.org/event/wotw-berkshires
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