Underneath the greenhouses at 'Welwyn', the Harold I. Pratt estate designed by Babb, Cook & Willard c. 1906 in Glen Cove with Delano & Aldrich alterations in the '20s. Click HERE to see the 'Welwyn' greenhouses as they look today. Click HERE for more on 'Welwyn'.
7 comments:
Is the restoration project actually underway or is it still largely "aspirational"?
The clearing work they did in the spring of 2010 never seems to have been completed and the weeds are starting to take back over the complex.
I remember they had run into some community opposition and I assume that's where it stands. I hope someone comes back to clear this place out again before the spring or it will be that much harder to access next year.
Nassau County can't get out of its own way. The "community opposition"- composed of three or so local crackpots as far as I could tell- objected to the felling of trees that would be neccesairy to permit enough sunlight for vegetables to be grown. Never mind that the trees in question were all scrub growth that had sprung up in the several decades subsequent to Nassau County acquiring the property. Given the "hue and cry", you would have assumed that a plan had been put forth to blast out the Princeton Elm and replace it with a nuclear power facility. So it appears that this very worthy project has been abandoned and one of the more attractive greenhouse complexes in the United States is falling further to ruin.
There is nature worth saving, and there is nature not worth saving. From my perch 400 miles away, it would seem that in this case making a community garden of the greenhouse complex would be far the worthier project in this case, but hey, what do I know?
...of course, the graffiti'd walls have a nice urban edginess---quite like them, in fact.
Unless I'm mistaken, isn't that Magnus's name scrawled across the middle of the third photo?
You found me out!!!!
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