Monday, April 4, 2011

'Westbury House'

This past weekend marked the opening of the season for Old Westbury Gardens, the John Phipps estate designed by George Crawley c. 1905 in Old Westbury. Click HERE for more on 'Westbury House' and click HERE to visit the Old Westbury Gardens website.

17 comments:

Auntie sezzzzzz... said...

Thank you for showing us a lovely old place, which is not falling down or up for sale!!!!!!!!! -happy sigh-

Hope springs!

Zach L. said...

AAA-

I know recently there seems to have been a bunch of both but I have over 300 places on here and many of them are still intact and doing quite well. Use the links on the right side of the page to go into the archives and see for yourself.

Turner Pack Rats said...

even tho not so large as some of its contemporaries, this shot makes it look even more imposing. many of these piles were amplified by their back stairs but westbury house benefits the most.
my lawn isn't quite that green and day before yesterday had a little more of that solid white fertilizer added to it (about 10" here). aahhh - spring!

security word def - "ancraa" - variation of a slang word uttered by an extremely drunk estate owner to trespassers meaning to "go away" but producing blank looks.

Anonymous said...

How many have you been to Zach? I really love this blog.

The Down East Dilettante said...

Enough about Long Island and more about me: The news that OWG is open for the season, with that photo that I presume to be current, brings us Mainers to our knees. Oh, wait, no, we're up to our knees in snow, having had an unbelievable 10-12" on Friday, the 10th day of Spring on the Calendar. All around me I see nothing but snow.

The Yew topiaries in front of the terrace are getting out of hand and out of scale, a constant problem as these gardens age. At Castle Hill, the David Adler designed Crane estate at Ipswich, the half mile long hedges on either side of the grand allee are in process of being replaced, at just shy of 100.

Zach L. said...

DED -

Not current, taken last summer towards the end. Everything is still pretty bare round these parts.

Zach L. said...

Anon -

Very good question, I'm not sure I know...but it's no where near 300+. Probably around a few dozen that I've actually explored myself and the rest I've got to rely on old photos for.

Anonymous said...

Yes,those Yew Topiaries are destroying what were once very nice stone benches. I hate to see trees and shrubs killed, but in this case maybe they could be moved....I think less would be better, they obstruct that magnificent view.

The Down East Dilettante said...

anon, the topiaries are a part of the design, but they've just reached the end of their life---a constant garden problem is plants growing out of scale---one hope that OWG has four nice new ones coming along in their nursery, because these are clearly beyond help now---the clipping has gotten a little free form too.

Oh, I'm such a stickler..

Anonymous said...

DED....I thought that I saw in "Halcyon Days" they were not original to the design...I'll have to re-check when I get home tonight. I still think, even that they were, that less would be better, or some other type of green that does not get so wide.

Design Elements said...

beautiful shot . I'm reading the Villa by John Saladino and I don't know why but your post reminds me of the book. Happy new week!

HalfPuddingHalfSauce said...

"Castle Hill" -

http://wikimapia.org/#lat=42.6874356&lon=-70.777595&z=16&l=0&m=b

Doug Floor Plan said...

HPHS, thank you for the satellite view of ‘Castle Hill’. Here is another view of the grand allĂ©e which might interest you: http://issuu.com/acanthus_press/docs/american_gardens_acanthus_press/1 , go to page 101 in the views or page 247 in the actual book. It’s as if you were on top of the world.

The Down East Dilettante said...

Indeed, the allee at Castle Hill is one of the great country house landscape gestures in this country, and it is beautifully integrated with both house and the breathtaking natural landscape. A very powerful exercise in landscape design. The allees at OWG are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head that survives at anything near the scale. We are so desperately behind Europe in landscape preservation

The Down East Dilettante said...

Anonymous, you made me curious, and I looked at the 1910 aerial Zach posted some time ago, and at that time, there was considerable shrubbery, also large scale, and considerable vines (wisteria?) in front of the terrace stairs, but not topiary. Gardens, as living things, grow and evolve of course, and so at some point the topies seemed a good idea.

HalfPuddingHalfSauce said...

Doug Floor Plan I've seen that "top of the world" photo - its loaded at the wikimapia tags. Click on the Rose Garden and the Italian Garden for additional ones. Also Google Earth has photos attached to the area worth checking into.

Anonymous said...

DED....your absolutely correct. My minds eye kept taking me back to a particular photo...and I found it. In "Halcyon Days" by Peggie Boeegner, page 93, it's the view of the terrace Summer 1906, and the stairs are void of the wisteria and of any shubbery. Though,in some of the photographs some short years after, the shrubs appear to be some sort of Fir, and with plenty of Roses.Your also correct about the topiary being relatively new... maybe since the gardens opened to the public?