Unforgettable Gardens - Naumkeag’s Garden Preservation as a Fine Art
The gardens at Naumkeag are recognised world-wide for their iconic blue steps and grove of white birches. The property is run as a public garden by The Trustees of Reservations, who have been gifted with remarkable cultural resources that continue to connect people to place, and art to nature across iconic properties in Massachusetts, USA. A recent four-year restoration of Mabel Choate and Fletcher Steele’s masterpiece, Naumkeag, overlooking the Berkshire hills, ‘polished’ their 1926-1956 garden. Steele believed that garden making should be considered one of the fine arts. His fine attention to line, colour and texture, and Choate’s pursuit of the best horticultural selections drove the restoration. Fuelled by new programmes and events, and a business planning model based on the English National Trust, Naumkeag is now opened from early spring to late December drawing record crowds as the carefully preserved garden sparkles in every season. This lecture outlines the development of Naumkeag through its creators’ own words and engages the audience with its remarkable restoration discoveries, as The Trustees continue to polish this masterpiece garden.
Talk by Lucinda A. Brockway.
Time: 18:00 BST
