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.
