Adventures of a Narrative Gardener by dgilesltd

as planner, urban designer, preservationist, and writer, involved with pioneering Main Street Revitalization strategies, resulted in his designation as a Fellow by the American Institute of Certified Planners (A.I.C.P.). In 2019, US/ICOMOS also honored him as a Fellow. He succeeded in passing a resolution at the General Assembly of ICOMOS (International Committee on Monuments and Sites, an advisory body to UNESCO) in Paris, supporting context-sensitive design for corporate franchises adjacent to World Heritage Sites. He is Chairman Emeritus of Scenic America, a national coalition concerned with the visual character of cities and towns. He summers at Bellevue House in Newport, Rhode Island, where he also campaigns for protecting and enhancing community identity. He and his son are currently rebuilding an historic ranch house in Ojai, California, where they grow organic citrus.

Also available from GILES:

In association with the Hamilton Family Trust NEWPORT A Lively Experiment: 1639–1969 Rockwell Stensrud In association with Lively Experiment LLC and Rockwell Stensrud ISBN 978-1-911282-74-7 Distributed in the USA and Canada by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution The Keg House 34 Thirteenth Avenue NE, Suite 101 Minneapolis, MN 55413-1007 USA www.cbsd.com

This is a fascinating book for many reasons, but especially because it uses the author’s narrative gardens cascade, Years of Living Dangerously, as a lens for exploring his own journey from military service in Vietnam and years of protest in its aftermath, to a process of healing and reconciliation with the support of his fellow veterans. Ron has lived an extraordinary American life: raised conservative, trained as an urban planner, tested while serving with the Green Berets, tormented by a war he’d seen up close, and ultimately reborn in a life committed to preserving cultural memory in challenging times. Ron’s intriguing and unique point of view on life animates his work and brings this book to life for gardeners and non-gardeners alike. —John F. Kerry, 68th US Secretary of State

Ronald Lee Fleming

9 781911 282747

53995

Creating a Landscape of Memory Ronald Lee Fleming his is the story of a garden, Bellevue House, in Newport, Rhode Island, that encompasses history

and memory, inspiration and motivation. Author Ronald Lee Fleming has written an entirely new kind of garden book: an empowerment guide for the gardener who wants to invest their own sense of place and family history into their garden. The volume is full of beautiful illustrations demonstrating the wide range of sources for this wonderful garden, from Mughal fountains and Italian grotesques to English stately homes and Japanese gardens. Through each chapter, Fleming explores how his own life experience has influenced the planning of his garden and how past events have found expression in his designs. Rather than paying homage to contemporary landscapes, Fleming surveys historic gardens that influence his design, examines his own mistakes, and along the way imparts invaluable advice to the wouldbe narrative gardener. All the while Fleming makes a compelling argument for the continuity of classicism. Through a careful mix of rich visual imagery and memoir (including a harrowing account of his year in Vietnam), the book brings to life the garden Fleming has created as an external expression of his personal journey.

Front cover View from the Oriental Vale to the Samuel McIntire-inspired rotunda, based on his design for the Howard Street Church in Salem, Massachusetts

UK£30.00 / US$39.95 ISBN 978-1-911282-74-7

The Adventures of a Narrative Gardener

THE

GILES An imprint of D Giles Limited 66 High Street, Lewes BN7 1XG UK gilesltd.com

This lovely book challenges current historic preservation practice which, misreading the Venice Charter of 1964, imposes rupture with the past instead of the continuity that produced our historic places originally. Ronald Fleming’s garden demonstrates an older and wiser approach based on harmony and an authenticity rooted in care and craft. —Steven W. Semes, Professor of Architecture, University of Notre Dame and author of The Future of the Past: A Conservation Ethic for Architecture, Urbanism, and Historic Preservation.

The Adventures of a Narrative Gardener

Ronald Lee Fleming

THE BLUE GARDEN Recapturing an Iconic Newport Landscape Arleyn A. Levee Edited by Sarah Vance

This is not your average pretty garden book. Ronald Lee Fleming is telling us the story of his life through the imagery of gardens he has known and loved and brought home to his own garden in Newport. The fountains, parterres, pergolas, grotto, pavilions, and follies he fashioned all relate to some aspect of this man’s extraordinary life. His ability to create a visual biography out of such a horticultural smorgasbord is unique in garden-making and transforms his book into a deeply personal history. This is a sublime American garden. —Caroline Seebohm, author, Paradise on the Hudson: The Creation, Loss, and Revival of a Great American Garden and Rescuing Eden: Preserving America’s Historic Gardens.

Creating a Landscape of Memory

and innovating place-making

As the pioneer founder of Townscape Institute, Ronald Lee Fleming enriched American cities with narrative landscapes that engaged the present with the past. Now in lucent prose, he has collected the stories of his own life, along with experiences of his family and friends, and shows how he lovingly reinterpreted them over decades through a symbolic collection of timeless garden follies and stately landscape architecture at his Newport mansion, Bellevue House. In this harmonious ensemble, magnificently illustrated, he demonstrates and encourages the integration of life and art. —Paula Deitz, author, Of Gardens: Selected Essays and editor of The Hudson Review.

The Adventures of a Narrative Gardener

Ronald Lee Fleming’s work

Creating a Landscape of Memory

Back cover Chinese Chippendale bridge, Bellevue House Author photo by Bethy Cardozo

T H E A DV E N T U R E S OF A N A R R AT I V E GA R DE N E R

delivery of the lotus carving made by English stone-carver

Fig. 3 Aerial view of Bellevue House and garden,

Nicholas Fairplay, to evoke the idea of fertility rising out

2010. This photo shows how the gardens have been

of the muck. Edwin Lutyens designed these lotus flowers in massive brownstone for the Mughal Gardens behind the Vice Regal Lodge in New Delhi.

transformed slowly over time. By this point, we had constructed the new small teahouse (lower left), the cupola, and the Oriental Vale garden (right).

The next to be honored is the late Lester Glenn â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ruffâ&#x20AC;? Fant III, who had a curable form of cancer but died

built environment. Professional colleagues are acknowledged

suddenly and unexpectedly from an adverse reaction to a

in the endnotes, and photographers are credited in the in

cancer drug in May 2019. He was one of my dearest friends

the credits list at the back of the book. I also want to offer

and supported my vision with a most extraordinary selfless

sincere thanks to those who took the time to call back to

dedication. I met him at a Harvard dining club in 1964,

answer questions, or who had the patience to review drafts.

and I am forever grateful for his advice, encouragement,

I am grateful to the board of the Townscape Institute,

and support. He was a comrade soul who will remain in my

which, guided by lawyer William S. Strong, has encouraged

memory forever. My grief in his passing is surpassed only

this project over two decades. As the garden and library

by my admiration of his generosity of spirit, as he shared

evolved, the late Dr. John Constable always took a

friends, ideas, and insights.

renaissance view with an analytical frame of mind that has

Twelve years is a long period since the last book, and I am grateful for the patience of friends and colleagues. Of course, we must take complete responsibility for our own

been an inspiration. He was an astonishingly loyal friend through thick and thin. Over the years, there have been advisers and friends.

assessments, but there is much I would not have known

Professor Nathan Glazer encouraged me to publish in the

without the candor of so many sophisticated observers of the

very last issue of The Public Interest. The resultant article, co-

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

C R E AT I N G A L A N D S C A P E OF M E M ORY

written with Townscape staffer Melissa Tapper Goldman,

Fig. 4 Aerial view of Bellevue House and garden, 2018.

helped us to press our argument about federal policy and

The landscape reveals the green house, the stable block

public art. Professor Glazer was a true public intellectual 2

who didn’t hoard his talent in academia. He spoke out publicly in the national press, where he could cajole, chide, and critique, even if he was sometimes “politically incorrect” in his judgments. The present book represents a culmination of efforts

(housing conference and guest rooms), the library/ nymphaeum, and the new cabanas for visiting fellows. We had composed a new Arts and Crafts garden, the moss garden under the large canopy, new pools, and alleés. The pattern language has been enhanced with exedras, gazeboes, green garden rooms, and many volutes.

over many years, and I wish to thank those individuals and families who have nourished my body and soul during the

Special Forces Group in Nha Trang and later attached to

past decades, and those who were initial mentors and muses

the embassy in Saigon (see chapter 4); through a cousin

in my youth. Langley Keyes of Cambridge, Massachusetts—

of theirs, I met the late Earl Peregrine St. Germans, who

whose mother-in-law took me to that strawberry supper

enriched my vision and became a lifelong friend. The

on Craftsbury Common that so influenced my vision of

Trevelyans’ daughter Catriona Trevelyan Tomalin Tyson

America (see p. 95)—encouraged me to change from the

became a good friend and, with her second husband,

law to urban planning, which gave me an entirely different

Richard Tyson, further opened my eyes to selected bits of

career. For that first grounding of support, I would like to

the English countryside; Catriona had been the head girl at

thank the late Sir George and Lady Trevelyan, whom I met

a school in Shropshire and introduced me to the successive

at Attingham Park in Shropshire, where I went to take a

head girl, Fiona Peel. Indeed, my Wanderjahr, which started

course on the English country house as an antidote to my

at Attingham, included the inspection of many places,

experiences as an intelligence officer serving with the Fifth

from Venice to Vienna to southern Germany and back to

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T H E A DV E N T U R E S OF A N A R R AT I V E GA R DE N E R

Repetition of architectural details We started our quest for a larger coherence in the garden with only one central structure—the two-story McIntiredesigned teahouse, which architect Fiske Kimball, dean of the University of Virginia and director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, replicated for Martha Codman in l922.14 The original teahouse, built in 1793–94, was named the Derby Summer House; it featured a portico opening through the ground floor, and mounted on its roof were wooden sculptures (acroteria) of a yeoman and Pomona, the 52

ancient Roman goddess of abundance. Our structure, without Pomona atop, anchored our garden and provided the impetus for other McIntire-style buildings, repeating architectural forms that give the garden its basic pattern language and its rhythm. The small buildings are used to command focal points and viewsheds (figs. 52–58). The garden now features two teahouses, a cupola (replicated from the single surviving drawing of a burned church in Salem; see fig. 93), two Federal-style bathhouses, a library/nymphaeum, and the classically detailed Derby Coach House (conference room and guest bedrooms), as well as a pergola, gazebo, exedra, and an arch replicating (in smaller scale) the four McIntire constructed in Washington Square, Salem, as part of a city green enhancement project directed by Elias Hasket Derby.

In modern design, architectural elements are often used idiosyncratically to strike the occasional dramatic chord—sometimes, in fact, a dissonant note of asymmetry. But the effort of a pattern language is to build a seamless flow through space that carries the eye forward with richly evoked details punctuating spatial forms (figs. 59–66). At its best, a pattern language creates a harmony of accretion and of accent while developing and reimagining each new garden space.15 Figs. 52 and 53 Central allée, looking north Fig. 54 Looking toward the formal French Garden and exedra

N AV I G A T I N G T H E C O S M O S O F F A M I L Y

C R E AT I N G A L A N D S C A P E OF M E M ORY

Fig. 55 Exterior of the allée Fig. 56 Lovers’ seat enclosure Fig. 57 North side of the enclosure, looking south to the newly constructed small teahouse Fig. 58 South lawn

N AV I G A T I N G T H E C O S M O S O F F A M I L Y

T H E A DV E N T U R E S OF A N A R R AT I V E GA R DE N E R

Fig. 67 Original teahouse Fig. 68 Current teahouse Fig. 69 Cupola Fig. 70 Chinese Chippendale bridge

N AV I G A T I N G T H E C O S M O S O F F A M I L Y

C R E AT I N G A L A N D S C A P E OF M E M ORY

Fig. 71 Small teahouse Fig. 72 Bellevue House replica of the Colonial Revival pergola from the Sarah Orne Jewett House outside Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Fig. 73 Reconstructed pergola. The pergola was here before the 1938 hurricane. Fig. 74 The shower arch at Bellevue House is a replica of one of the arches made by Samuel McIntire for Washington Square, Salem, Massachusetts

N AV I G A T I N G T H E C O S M O S O F F A M I L Y

T H E A DV E N T U R E S OF A N A R R AT I V E GA R DE N E R

Fig. 93 Samuel McIntire, alternate elevation and plan for cupola of Branch or Howard Street Church, Salem, 1804–1805, Pen and ink and wash on paper, 38.1 × 11.98 cm (15 × 418⁄25 in.), Phillips Library, Samuel McIntire Papers MSS 264, Box 3, Folder 5, #60 Fig. 94 Drawing of Bellevue House cupola by J. P. Couture Fig. 95 Chinese Dairy at Woburn Abbey and Gardens, Bedfordshire, England

The pool is now symmetrical, fed by a little cascade

that is framed by a Chinese Chippendale bridge in

Kosciuszko, links the “peninsula” shaped by the edge of this

vermillion red. The English interest in Chinese folly

formal pond and the adjacent lagoon, named the Oriental

structures stimulated the eighteenth-century architect

Vale (figs. 96 and 97).21

William Chambers to produce some designs, which

The Oriental Vale garden was inspired by a lone pine

led to the Chinese pavilions found at Biddulph Grange

(which died) at the southeast corner of the property and

and at Woburn Abbey (fig. 95). Our Chinese bridge,

three Japanese maples. Desiring to capture a reflection of

the trees’ leaves in the fall, we created a sinuous lagoon bordered with grasses and lily pads, where water flows over a tiny cascade into the more formal English-style pond. To the southeast we constructed a hillock with a waterfall that courses down next to the water-loving willow that replaced the pine tree—removed when it became waterlogged—thus creating the “vale.” Two connecting streamlets mark this waterfall, which rises roughly three and a half feet above the garden floor, forming a landscape backdrop on the southern edge of the property. The stream and subsequent waterfall is traversed at the top by a Japanese-style stone slab bridge. At the water level, stepping-stones cross the stream as it empties into the lagoon. A path marked by carved granite Japanese lanterns circles the new willow tree and connects it to the peninsula, 95

N AV I G A T I N G T H E C O S M O S O F F A M I L Y

leading back to the Chinese Chippendale bridge. Evergreens

C R E AT I N G A L A N D S C A P E OF M E M ORY

frame the scene, and a â&#x20AC;&#x153;shoalâ&#x20AC;? of dark blue-grey pebbles

with its beds of pebbles framing a lagoon, one of the most

(imported from Peru, as it is harder now to purchase them

distinctive uses of these pebbles in Japanese garden design

locally) form a bold, dark pattern along the western side of

(fig. 98).22

the lagoon. The garden is full of drama in the spring and the

The Oriental Vale is intended to resemble something that

fall, when first the azaleas and then the grasses and maples

an English squire might have created in his park. Aside from

planted near the stones turn a contrasting orange and red.

the allusion to the Katsura Villaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pebbled shore, we shaped

This is our homage to the Katsura Imperial Villa in Kyoto,

the vale with an overall effect of Orientalism, rather than

Figs. 96 and 97 Oriental Vale, Bellevue House Fig. 98 Katsura Imperial Villa, Kyoto, Japan

N AV I G A T I N G T H E C O S M O S O F F A M I L Y

T H E A DV E N T U R E S OF A N A R R AT I V E GA R DE N E R

206

207

Fig. 206 McIntire-inspired marble drain in the greenhouse Fig. 207 Detail of carved sofa by Samuel McIntire, 1799â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1805, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The M. and M. Karolik Collection of EighteenthCentury American Arts, 23.21 Fig. 208 Inlaid stone table in the greenhouse

132

THE PLACE OF CRAFT AND THE ROLE OF THE ARTIST

208

C R E AT I N G A L A N D S C A P E OF M E M ORY

209

210

212

213

Fig. 209 Mosaic in the Kitchen Garden Fig. 210 Drain in the Kitchen Garden Fig. 211 Front door Fig. 212 Detail of sidelight next to the front door 211

Fig. 213 Detail of rotunda stairs

THE PLACE OF CRAFT AND THE ROLE OF THE ARTIST

133

Historic gardens Studley Royal Park, England

Garden at Bellevue House. A succession of two princely cardinals

The pond edge at Bellevue House,

(Gambara, Montalto) owned Villa Lante, which served as a

with its stone steps and the rotunda

retreat from the Roman summer heat, while also assisting the

with cupola situated behind it,

cardinals in their competition for papal favor.

evoke a similar arrangement to that of the Georgian water garden

Little Sparta, Scotland

at Studley Royal. John Aislabie,

The sculptures and sometimes

followed by his son William,

unsettling atmosphere of the

created the Yorkshire masterpiece over more than half a century

twentieth-century Scottish garden

(1716–after 1768). Aislabie, as chancellor of the exchequer, was

of Ian Hamilton Finlay and his wife

a principal sponsor of what was known as the South Sea Bubble

Sue informed the design of the Years

scheme. In 1720 when this vast financial operation collapsed, he

of Living Dangerously cascade at

and his son retired to their garden, which is now a designated

Bellevue House. The collision of war

World Heritage Site.

and nature at Little Sparta (a figure of an aircraft carrier mounted on a column) finds its echo at Bellevue House in sculptures such The Chinese Dairy at Woburn

as a Katanga flag, a hole in the windshield of a Jaguar XKE,

Abbey, seat of the dukes of

a bullet suspended three inches next to a skull, another skull

Bedford, and the scarlet Chinese

cracked open symbolizing a hemorrhage, and two VW Bugs

bridge created in the mid-

representing roadside near-disasters.

nineteenth century by John Bateman at Biddulph Grange,

La Foce, Italy

both in England, directly influence

Features of the pergola designed by

features of the Oriental Vale and

the English architect Cecil Pinsent

the Chippendale bridge at Bellevue

(1884–1963) at Iris Origo’s terraced

House, as did the black beach stones

and compartmented gardens at La

along the pond in the seventeenth-

Foce in Tuscany are referenced in

century gardens of the Katsura

the pergola arrangement adjacent to

Imperial Villa in Kyoto, Japan.

the Arts and Crafts pool at Bellevue House. Mughal Gardens, Rashtrapati

Villa Lante, Italy

Bhavan, India

The continuous descending water

The lotus-pad fountain designed by

feature of sixteenth-century Villa

Edwin Lutyens (1869–1944) for his

Lante in Bagnaia inspire the rill, the

Mughal Gardens in New Delhi is

stone water table with a trough for

minutely recreated in the Arts and

cooling wine, and the fountains of

Crafts pool at Bellevue House.

the American Renaissance Water

154

C R E AT I N G A L A N D S C A P E OF M E M ORY

Hestercombe House, England

Het Loo Palace, Netherlands

The Arts and Crafts pool and garden

A sketch by architect and interior

at Bellevue House, particularly the

designer Ogden Codman Jr. (1863–

shell cove at the end of the pool,

1951) of a trellis in the gardens of

originate in Edwin Lutyens’s early-

the royal Dutch palace of Het Loo

twentieth-century designs, with

was the direct inspiration for the

Gertrude Jekyll, for the garden at

trellis behind the Pomona statue in

Hestercombe House in Somerset.

the American Renaissance Water

At Bellevue House, the shell cove is set into a terrace above, and

Garden.

waters at the base flow over into a sapphire pool. Iford Manor, England Barnsley House, England

Garden designer Harold Peto (1954–1933) sketched a bench in

The brilliant yellow laburnum

Pompeii that he later used in his own gardens at Iford Manor

pergola and walk in the Cotswolds

in Wiltshire; that form is echoed in a bench in the American

garden of famed author and

Renaissance Water Garden at Bellevue House.

garden designer Rosemary Verey (1918–2001) was created in 1964.

Bellevue House, United States

Its splendid springtime show is the

The first garden at Bellevue House

basis for a similar planting around

(originally Berkeley Villa) was a

the pergola at Bellevue House.

French-style parterre created in the 1920s by the French garden

Hever Castle, England

architect Achille Duchêne to

Details of the cascade and volute

complement a summer house

forms in William Waldorf Astor’s

designed for Martha Codman

terrace garden at Hever Castle in

Karolik and designed by her cousin Ogden Codman Jr. in 1910.

Kent helped to inspire both the American Renaissance Water

Schloss Hellbrunn, Austria

Garden and the Years of Living

The waterspouts incorporated

Dangerously cascade adjacent to the

into the Villa Lante-style table

library/nymphaeum and emerald pool at Bellevue House.

at Bellevue House descend from

the playful trick fountains devised in the seventeenth century by the humanist and archbishop of Salzburg Markus Sitticus von Hohenems at Schloss Hellbrunn.

HISTORIC GARDENS

155

Also available from GILES:

In association with the Hamilton Family Trust NEWPORT A Lively Experiment: 1639–1969 Rockwell Stensrud In association with Lively Experiment LLC and Rockwell Stensrud ISBN 978-1-911282-74-7

GILES An imprint of D Giles Limited 66 High Street, Lewes BN7 1XG UK gilesltd.com

REPRO Narrative Gardener jkt NF 05 5mmBleed.indd 1

UK£30.00 / US$39.95 ISBN 978-1-911282-74-7

9 781911 282747

53995

Ronald Lee Fleming

The Adventures of a Narrative Gardener Creating a Landscape of Memory Ronald Lee Fleming

his is the story of a garden, Bellevue House, in Newport, Rhode Island, that encompasses history

THE TOWNSCAPE INSTITUTE

Distributed in the USA and Canada by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution The Keg House 34 Thirteenth Avenue NE, Suite 101 Minneapolis, MN 55413-1007 USA www.cbsd.com

The Adventures of a Narrative Gardener

Ronald Lee Fleming

THE BLUE GARDEN Recapturing an Iconic Newport Landscape Arleyn A. Levee Edited by Sarah Vance

Creating a Landscape of Memory

and innovating place-making

The Adventures of a Narrative Gardener

Ronald Lee Fleming’s work

Front cover View from the Oriental Vale to the Samuel McIntire-inspired rotunda, based on his design for the Howard Street Church in Salem, Massachusetts

Creating a Landscape of Memory

Back cover Chinese Chippendale bridge, Bellevue House Author photo by Bethy Cardozo

26/08/2020 12:33