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