Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park and Old Westbury Gardens

Oyster Bay and Old Westbury

Long Island

Lovers of manicured English-style gardens have plenty of places to choose from along Long Island’s Gold Coast. Some are more interesting than others, and some have rather impractical hours. Let’s take a look at two on offer.

The first is Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park in Oyster Bay. Despite its rather lengthy name, these gardens aren’t very large, a manageable 160 acres. The tricky thing about Planting Fields, though, is that the various homes on the estate are all open at different times from the grounds. So, if you arrive too early or too late, the historic homes will be closed to you. This happened to us when we visited. We showed up at 9am, right when the grounds open, but the homes don’t open until 11:30. And, frankly, there’s not enough garden to keep one occupied for over two hours.

I had to settle for peeking inside Coe Hall, the Tudor-style mansion built in 1918, and the Manor House built in 1955. Both appeared to be empty inside, so I don’t know what visitors would enjoy other than spacious rooms during the buildings’ open hours. Pictures on the Park’s website indicate that there are some lovely decorated rooms, so perhaps I just couldn’t see them from my various window perches.

The gardens, while lovely, are overrun with signs admonishing visitors to stay off the walls, not to touch the plants, not to climb the trees. It was hard to see the flowers for all of the signs. And, naturally, since there were so many damns signs to the contrary, I had to climb a tree. First thing in the morning there are few visitors and few employees, so it wasn’t so dangerous an act.

Plant Fields Arboretum State Historic Park was donated to New York in 1948 for use as a horticulture school following the death of its owner William Robert Coe, a man who made his money in insurance and married an oil and railway heiress, Mai Huttleson Rogers. Some of the buildings on the property are still private residences, so there are also plenty of friendly signs telling visitors to stay away from them.

Much more open and visitor-friendly is Old Westbury Gardens in Old Westbury, naturally. Old Westbury Gardens is also rather undaunting in size, 200 acres, but it has quite a stunning English manor home that is both fully furnished and open the same time as the grounds. It was once the country estate of John S. Phipps, a partner in the Carnegie Steel Company whose wife was a member of the Grace shipping line family.

The lovely Charles II style house the Phipps family lived in is filled with paintings by Joshua Reynolds, John Constable, and Thomas Gainsborough. However, the curators of the estate have decided to include dioramas with mannequins posing in some of the rooms. These life-sized dolls give the rooms they swell in an odd, macabre air. And, as Mr. Phipps was a sportsman, there is the occasional manly touch, mostly consisting of taxidermied animals. Also nice is the second floor master bathroom which contains a wicker chair cover; that’s how the civilized folks did things.

The gardens themselves range from well-manicured walled gardens to a pond with surrounding forests that are allowed to take their natural course. Free concerts and readings are regularly held on the garden grounds. Be sure to check out the Greek Temple of Love and the Byzantine style mosaics behind the pool.

http://www.plantingfields.org

https://www.oldwestburygardens.org

Sagamore Hill and Caumsett State Historic Park Preserve

Huntington and Oyster Bay

Long Island

Theodore Roosevelt, 26^th President of the United States, was always known as a man’s man. This, like Che Guevara, was cultivated as a response to a sickly, asthmatic childhood. A few years ago I had the pleasure of attending a private event at the Yale Club and came face to face with several animals Teddy had shot on safari in Africa. He was born into the prestigious Roosevelt philanthropist family who had amassed a fortune importing plate-glass. His birthplace, in the high-end neighborhood of Gramercy Park, Manhattan, is a National Historic Site, as is his private home, Sagamore Hill, which he built on Cove Neck, just east of Oyster Bay where his family spent their summers when he was a boy.

As an adult Theodore and his young bride designed a Queen Anne-style home with the idea of raising their children there. Construction began in 1884 but soon halted following the death of his wife two days after giving birth to their first child. Friends later convinced the grief-ridden Roosevelt to finish the home as a place to raise baby Alice (named after her mother), and in 1887 he moved into the home with his new wife, Edith. Sagamore Hill served as the family’s home over the next thirty years, including the President’s Summer White House from 1902 to 1908. In total six Roosevelt children were raised at Sagamore Hill, which the President decorated as something between a hunting lodge and a temple to manliness.

President Roosevelt died at Sagamore Hill in 1919. His eldest son Teddy Jr. hoped to take over the home and raise his family there, but Edith wanted to remain in the home and gave Junior a few acres of land where he built his own residence known as Old Orchard, which now serves as the site’s museum. Edith died at the home in 1948 and the 84-acre estate was purchased by the Theodore Roosevelt Association, and nonprofit founded in 1919 to preserve Teddy’s legacy.

For the past two summers Sagamore Hill has been closed due to a massive rehabilitation project. The Visitor Center, Theodore Roosevelt Museum (Old Orchard), and park grounds remain open, but low visitation numbers have caused the site to maintain winter hours year round. The only way to see the inside of Sagamore Hill is through a video displayed at Old Orchard.

Despite not being able to enter the home (hopefully the project will be completed by the summer of 2015), a visit to the Theodore Roosevelt estate is not a total waste. The building exterior is rather impressive, as is the windmill, museum, pet cemetery, and remains of the grass tennis courts. A small nature trail leads across a boardwalk to Cold Spring Harbor. Watch out for the wild turkeys in the area.

Just across Oyster Bay on Lloyd Neck north of Huntington is Caumsett State Historic Park Preserve, which holds the remains of a 1600-acre English-style estate designed by Marshall Field III (grandson of the department store pioneer) who along with some fellow wealthy friends dreamed of creating a self-sufficient home (including its own water and electrical supply) that was a cross between a country club and a hunting preserve. Marshall III began construction in 1921 and by the time he was done the estate had a herd of 80 prize cattle and a complete dairy farm (still operational) and facilities for tennis, horseback riding, shooting, fishing, swimming, and boating—everything but golf. In the 1930s the Marshall Field family hosted polo matches and extravagant parties on the estate, including a famous circus-themed one that boasted Fred Astaire and George Gershwin as guests

The privileged dream didn’t last—they spent more time in Chicago than New York and were also aware that throwing lavish balls in the midst of a depression was bad press for the founder of The Chicago Sun. The New York State Park system bought the land in 1961. People can still ride horses on the bridal paths, either on their own horse or one from the riding stables. They can also bike, fish, scuba dive, cross-country ski, hike, and bird watch. Unfortunately, the homes—the Summer Cottage, Winter Cottage, and Marshall Field House—are not open to visitors. One must be contented to admire them from the outside.

The park is too large to explore on foot unless you plan on spending the entire day there. It’s much friendlier for biking. Also, most of the paths are paved and the landscape is so well-maintained that you never actually feel like you’re surrounded by nature; nature doesn’t get mowed every two weeks. I could see how people who want to bike without the worry of traffic might enjoy Caumsett, but true history buffs or nature seekers will be disappointed.

http://www.nps.gov/sahi/index.htm

http://www.sagamore-hill.com/

http://www.nysparks.com/parks/23/details.aspx

http://www.caumsettfoundation.org/

Vanderbilt Museum Historic House and Planetarium

Centerport

Long Island

One of the most elaborate estates to be found on Long Island’s Gold Coast is Eagle’s Nest, the summer home of railroad baron trust-fund baby William K. Vanderbilt II and family. William “worked” at his family’s New York Central Railroad offices at Grand Central Station in Manhattan, but his real passions were yachting and racing. He had the sort of upraising that allowed him to drop out of Harvard after two years and spend most of his time traveling and enjoying his leisure time. Despite being born into a ridiculously wealthy family, he felt the need to marry Virginia Graham Fair, the wealthy heiress of the Comstock Load mining fortune. Together the two developed the 43-acre estate in Nassau County from 1910 to 1936. Willie K. even started the Vanderbilt Cup, the first major car-racing trophy in the United States, which continued on Long Island until 1968.

The first building phase of Eagle’s Nest was the 24-room Spanish Baroque revival style mansion designed by the same architectural firm that designed New York’s Grand Central Terminal for the Vanderbilt family. On weekends in the summer visitors can take a “Living History” tour where actors portraying friends and family of the Vanderbilts guide groups through the home. This is what piqued my interest in visiting Eagle’s Nest: I love guides in period costume! The term “actor,” however, is a generous one for the individuals who took us through the home on Memorial Day Weekend, the first weekend that the Living History tours are offered. Perhaps they were rusty from not having “performed” since the Labor Day Weekend before, but there was a lot of stumbling through lines and horrible accents.

We were met by a rather shabbily dressed Coco Chanel in a pair of brown loafers I’m sure the real Coco would have never worn. The stories told on the tours are based on the experiences of people who lived nearby and who worked on the estate as teenagers. They also use materials from the museum’s archives, which includes personal letters, journals, and photographs. Coco Chanel left us when she ran into Delia O’Rourke, the Vanderbilt’s Irish cook whose Irish accent made Coco’s French seem Oscar worthy. Things perked up when we met up with Ellin Berlin, the wife of composer Irving Berlin, but the best guide by far was Stirling Vanderbilt, Willie’s brother, who, unfortunately, had to leave us to check on his yacht.

 

I personally was rather disappointed in the Living History tour, but despite the uneven performances Ben thought it was better than a regular tour given in the ordinary manner, so perhaps I had my as usual too-high expectations. I suggest visitors looking for this tour go later in the summer when the actors have had the opportunity to better hone their craft.

The Living History tours began about ten years ago, but people have been visiting Eagle’s Nest since 1922 when Willie opened the Hall of Fishes in his own personal Marine Museum. During Junior’s travels he collected sea life, birds, animals, and cultural artifacts for the museum he planned to build on the Long Island estate. Along with the Marine Museum, rooms in the mansion contain his cultural-artifacts and natural-history collections and the basement contains his 1928 Lincoln touring car, a rare 1909 Reo Gentleman’s Roadster, and a history of the Vanderbilt Cup Races. Willie worked with scientists and artists from the American Museum of Natural History to design the Habitat and Stoll Wings which contains dioramas of animal life, including a 32-foot whale shark, the world’s largest taxidermied fish.

Other highlights of the estate are the rose garden and Corinthian colonnade, and the remains of a 9-hole golf course and salt-water pool, all of which overlook the Northport Bay of Long Island Sound. Willie K. panned on donating his estate to the public as an educational facility and created a trust for it in his will. The county opened the estate as a museum in 1950, and built the planetarium to further the Vanderbilt educational goals in 1970. The carriage house has been turned into an education center for school groups. Visitors during the summer, however, don’t need to worry about large groups of children. It’s best to arrive early if you’re interested in the Living History tour as they tend to sell out. Regular tours are on offer for those not as keen on dramatic interpretation.

There aren’t many dining options in the area, and there’s no café in the Vanderbilt estate, so allow me to recommend The Shack, located about a quarter mile past 86 (Little Neck Road, which leads to Eagle’s Nest) on 25A, just at the start of Stony Hollow Road. As the name implies, it is little more than a roadside shack with modest picnic tables to sit on and no table service, but the unpretentious clams, fries, chowder, and beer are all reasonably priced and welcome in an area lacking dining establishments.

http://www.vanderbiltmuseum.org/

Bannerman Castle, Pollepel Island

Hudson River Valley 

Between Beacon and Cold Spring

A little more than an hour north of Manhattan there is a small island that holds the remains of a Scottish castle. From spring to fall, when the waters of the Hudson River are above hypothermia inducing temperatures, visitors can kayak to the island with guided group tours that depart from the towns of Beacon and Cold Spring on the east bank and Cornwall-on-Hudson on the west bank. Less athletic visitors can take a ferry from Beacon on the east bank or Newburg on the west bank. These tours are generally on the weekends, and every third Sunday there is music on the island provided by local musicians.

My partner and I embarked via kayak from Cold Spring one fine August Saturday with a group led by Hudson River Expeditions. The tour is a bit pricy—$130—but includes lunch, a kayak guide, and an island tour. We were a bit worried about our kayak skills—I had kayaked before, but never such a far distance, and he had never kayaked—so we opted for a tandem kayak. This meant we both could work a little bit less, though going in a straight line proved to be something of a challenge.

The tours take somewhere between four and five hours, with the trip to and from the island taking somewhere around an hour, depending on weather and the river current. It was a perfect day when we went, sunny but not too hot. Hunger is the best spice and I do believe the avocado hummus sandwich I ate after arriving to Pollepel Island was one of the best I’ve ever had. Thom Johnson, a man from the Bannerman Castle Trust met us and provided us with a thorough history of the island—including a few promotional remarks about his book on the island’s history (but, hey, all proceeds go to the Trust). Unfortunately, none of the structures, home or castle, are safe enough to enter, but the Trust is working to make visits inside the home a future possibility.

The Scottish castle was begun in 1901 by Francis Bannerman, a man from Dundee, Scotland, who moved to Brooklyn with his family in 1854 when he was three years old. Frank’s father started the family business of buying surplus army and navy goods and reselling them. Frank took over the family business and following the Spanish War had acquired so much equipment, ammunition, and gunpowder that the city of New York forced him to move his business from Broadway in Manhattan for fear an accident could blow up the southern tip of the island. This is when Bannerman purchased Pollepel Island and built a home for his family and a storage building in the style of a Scottish castle (designed by Francis himself) as a nod to his family’s cultural heritage.

Despite being a munitions dealer, the Bannermans considered themselves peaceful persons. Francis wrote that he hoped one day his warehouse would be known as “The Museum of Lost Arts.” The Bannerman family lived on the island in the summer and his wife, Helen, grew the trees, plants, and gardens that continue to thrive on the island. Prior to her gardening the island was all but devoid of greenery.

Francis Bannerman died in 1918 and in 1920, 200 tons of shells and powder exploded, destroying part of the complex. The Bannerman business faltered due to new legislation which prohibited the sale of military weapons to civilians. They sold the island to a branch of the Rockefeller Foundation, which in turn sold it to the New York State Office of Parks in 1967, which briefly offered tours of the island. Two years after the State acquired Pollepel Island, a massive fire destroyed much of the building structures, and the island was placed off-limits to the public. After several decades of neglect, decay, and random acts of vandalism from kids these days, the Bannerman Castle Trust was founded in 2003 to preserve the island. Part of its fundraising efforts includes tours that educate the public as well as provide revenue. In 2009 a storm caused a third of the remaining castle structure to collapse, and in 2012 a campaign was implemented to stabilize the remaining castle walls. While the modern scaffolding does a great deal to eliminate the castle’s romanticism, it also serves to prevent further deterioration of the structure.

After the tour is over and visitors paddle back to Cold Spring, a visit to Go-Go Pops on Main Street in order. This shop makes delicious fruity popsicles with only natural ingredients. I recommend the sour cherry or hibiscus; Ben likes the chili lime or spicy mango.

http://www.bannermancastle.org/