This is the second year that I have assisted the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in curating a day-long Garden History Symposium. For this year’s program, I returned to a familiar, deeply resonate topic, New England women writer’s and their gardens. “Artists of New England and Their Gardens” features presentations on Emily Dickinson, Celia Thaxter and Edith Wharton, whose estate, The Mount, I visited this summer.
Wharton purchased The Mount in 1901. Here, in a remarkable ten-year period of creativity she wrote and/or published Italian Villas and Their Gardens (1904), Italian Backgrounds (1905), The House of Mirth (1905) and Ethan Frome (1911) while overseeing the design of the house and landscape as a singular expression of her artistic sensibilities.
Edith Wharton on the terrace of Sainte-Claire du Chateau, circa 1930. Courtesy of Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
To achieve her vision, Wharton commissioned architect Francis L. V. Hoppin to design a 16,850-square-foot Georgian Revival style house, modeled after Belton House, in Lincolnshire, England. Hoppin also provided plans for the outbuildings, gates and gardens.
The co-author of Wharton’s book, The Decoration of Houses, Ogden Codman (whose relationship with the Codman Estate in Lincoln, Massachusetts is profiled in a previous post) assisted with the design of the interiors and Wharton’s niece landscape designer Beatrix Farrand, provided the layout of the entry sequence and kitchen garden.
The Mount is sited on a rocky outcrop, overlooking a small stream, pond and meadows with distant views of Laurel Lake (now obscured). Surrounded by woodlands, the formal gardens are approached from the house by a series of sunlit sloping grass terraces.
Dated c.1902-03 this postcard predates the installation of the gardens and is one of the earliest known images of The Mount. Courtesy of The Mount.
“The Italian country house … was almost always built on a hillside, and one day the architect looked forth from the terrace of his villa, and saw that, in his survey of the garden, the enclosing landscape was naturally included: the two formed a part of the same composition” wrote Wharton, in Italian Villas and Their Gardens.
Adapting design principles absorbed on her extensive European travels, Wharton synthesized French, English and Italian features into the design of the house and grounds, presenting a uniquely American experience. For the gardens, Wharton chose materials suitable to the New England climate, using yews, hemlocks and arborvitae as structural elements to define the outdoor spaces and marble quarried from Lee.
To emphasize the relationship of the house to the landscape, one enters through an enclosed courtyard, which connects to the main floor where its principal spaces open onto an Italianate terrace with sweeping distant views.
From the terrace, used by Wharton as an “outdoor room” for entertaining (and now serving as restaurant) a staircase descends to a 300-foot long grass allée lined with pleached Linden trees.
The allée, serving as an outdoor corridor, connects two formal gardens.
While one, a French styled flower garden is lushly planted and open to view and the landscape beyond, the walled Italian garden is planted in shades of green and white, enclosed and modeled in the style of a “segreto giardino.” Each can be seen below, in a plan by landscape architect Carole Palermo Schulze, who served on the committee that worked on the garden’s restoration.
The French flower garden, visible from Wharton’s bedroom, is centered on a rectangular pool featuring a dolphin fountain.
A trellised niche serves as both a backdrop and visual termination of the Linden tree axis. Beds of annuals, perennials and shrubs provide continuous color and are planted with phlox, stocks, lilies, hydrangea, dianthus, delphinium, all beloved by Wharton. As part of an extensive restoration of the garden, more than 3,000 annuals and perennials have been planted.
The Italianate “secret” garden, has a rustic fountain at its center and is minimally planted. Described by Wharton as “having a charm independent of the seasons” it was my favorite part of the landscape.
A pergola, provides views to the landscape beyond while framing views from the landscape to the garden within. Seating niches provide intimate spaces in which to be alone, unnoticed and undisturbed.
The rustic nature of the Italian garden is emphasized through its details, including the bench below.
In Italian Villas and Their Gardens, Wharton wrote, “The inherent beauty of the [Italian] Garden lies in the grouping of its parts – in the converging of the lines of its long ilex-walks, the alteration of sunny open spaces with cool woodland shade, the proportion between terrace and bowling green, or between the heights of a wall or the width of a path….The great pleasure grounds overlooking the Roman Campagna are laid out on severe majestic lines: the parts are few: the total effect is one of breadth and simplicity.”
Despite Wharton’s brief tenure at The Mount, she was amazed by the success of her efforts so much so that she declared herself a better landscape gardener than novelist. Upon her departure and permanent relocation to Europe, she continued to do both creating gardens at the Pavillon Colombe and Château Sainte-Claire in France.
The garden at Pavillon Colombe, 1925 by photographer Frances Benjamin Johnson. Courtesy The Library of Congress.
Writing in 1934, three years before her death Wharton fondly recalled her time at The Mount where “country cares and joys” and “long happy rides and drives through the wooded lanes of that loveliest region, the companionship of dear friends and the freedom from trivial obligations” allowed her the space to write. It was her first real home.
For information about The Mount, which in addition to offering tours of the house and gardens, serves as a cultural center partnering with more than 40 organizations to offer lectures, dramatic readings, theater, music, storytelling, workshops, panels and outdoor sculpture and exhibits visit The Mount.
To join us on January 24th, which also happens to be Edith Wharton’s birthday, at “Artists of New England and Their Gardens” visit www.masshort.org.
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