The Italian Garden at Queset

The Italian Garden at Queset

by James O’Day, asla

T

he Italian Garden at Queset is like a family heirloom found in the attic—magnificent but a bit tarnished.

Abandoned for generations, this ruined garden is a silent testament to Edwardarian era bon vivants and a golden age in American gardening. Though many historic landscapes have been lost, this classically inspired garden has survived albeit largely forgotten under a choking tangle of vines and brambles. Preservation efforts are underway and it is now being reclaimed from the shrouds of nature.

A Renaissance revival for a Renaissance garden.

Winthrop Ames (1870 -1937), scion of a wealthy manufacturing family, was the designer of the Italian Garden at his family’s country seat in North Easton, Massachusetts. The Queset estate – named for the stream that runs through the property – was established in 1852 by Winthrop’s father, Oakes Angier Ames. He built the original manse, a handsome Gothic Revival residence designed by Andrew Jackson Downing. The Ames family had

View of the Italian Garden’s reflecting pool and pergola, c. 1920.

lived in this area since the late 18th century earning their livelihood as blacksmiths and manufacturers. By the 19th century, they had made their first fortune manufacturing shovels, supplying nearly 60% of the shovels used worldwide by the late 19th century. Skillfully parlaying their newfound wealth, the Ames family capitalized the nation’s first transcontinental railroad, the Union Pacific, thus making their second fortune as railroad barons.

Like the Medici of Renaissance Italy, the Ames family became seminal figures in politics and the arts. In the political realm, Oakes Ames served in Congress and his brother Oliver Ames served as Governor. As patrons of the arts, they commissioned the noted architect Henry Hobson Richardson and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted for the numerous public buildings, monuments and private estates that they built in North Easton.

Having little interest in the family business, Winthrop studied art and architecture at Harvard University and lived abroad for many years. He eventually established himself in New York’s theatre world, taking full advantage of family money and his theatrical talents.

He financed and built two Broadway landmarks – the Little Theatre (renamed the Helen Hayes Theatre in 1983) and the rebuilt Booth Theatre (named for actor Edwin Booth, brother of John Wilkes Booth). After the First World War, Ames produced and directed Broadway shows, successfully reviving such faded comic operas as Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado.

Despite his career in New York, Winthrop Ames made Queset his home and (above) Detail of Assyrian statue amongst fountain sprays and water iris. (below) The vine-clad pergola also served as a stage for summertime theatre O’Day · 2

Aerial view of the Queset estate with the Italian Gardens in lower center of image.

he began enhancing the property with projects reflecting his generation’s taste and wealth. Ames began laying out the Italian Garden in 1911. The choice of such a formal garden can be attributed to popular trends during this period. Known as the Country Place Era (1890-1940), America’s moneyed elite built grand estates modeled after those in Europe. Formal garden designs inspired by Renaissance and Baroque were popularized by such noted arbiters and designers as Edith Wharton, Beatrix Farrand, Charles Platt, Stanford White, and Guy Lowell.

In an interview conducted by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 1930, Ames comments that Frederick Law Olmsted had once been involved with the estate and had “made some changes in the naturalistic planting about the lawns and O’Day · 3

The Gothic Revival cottage at Queset by Andrew Jackson Downing.

The Ames children pose with the family dog in the Italian Garden.

elsewhere.” As for the design of the Italian Garden, he was rather self-deprecating: “The more formal features of the place – the [Italian] garden, the croquet lawn and the ‘yard’ – were designed (if proceeding largely by trial and error can be called design) by me; my wife supervises the flower planting, and we owe much to the interest of our superintendent, J. Fred Coles.”

Winthrop Ames deftly applied his talent for stagecraft to garden design by transforming a humble kitchen garden into a Renaissance-inspired vignette – hortus conclusis – nestled in the woodlands and the surrounding vernal ponds.

Taking advantage of a gentle slope, he designed a series of terraces and stone O’Day · 4

steps cascading from the brow of the hill to a stone columned pergola at its base. A reflecting pool featured a cast stone Assyrian figure playing the pipes–with fountain sprays amongst iris–was a principal feature. Ames created a sense of mystery and allure – giardino segreto–by enveloping his garden with a hedge of native, Rosebay rhododendron. The verticality of columnar trees marching up the terraced hillside further emphasized the influence of Italian Renaissance gardens. Clipped Bay trees in wooden casisse de Versailles tubs were strategically placed for additional dramatic effect.

Photographs of the Italian Garden from the 1920s illustrate a well-groomed

and mature landscape. Posed among the challenges. Appropriate restoration clipped hedges and stone terraces, two schemes and funding are still necessary if young girls (presumably Ames’ daughters it is to be preserved and maintained as an Catherine and Joan) explore the wonders historic landscape. Since 2006, the Ames of the garden. Another image depicts the Free Library Trustees have reclaimed handsome, stone-columned pergola that “ownership” of the adjacent garden with also served as a stage for impromptu plays a 99-year lease for the site. In order to put on by Ames’ visiting theatre friends. expand and improve the library’s research Upon retiring from the New York capacity, the library will rehabilitate the theater world in the early 1930s, Ames outlaying, historic buildings to create a returned full time to Queset where he campus for research and administrative took an active interest in his gardens facilities. With the proposed campus sceand played a role in the founding of the nario, the Italian Garden has the potential Cambridge School of Drama in 1932. Folto be an integral part of the library’s redelowing Winthrop Ames’ death in 1937, it is velopment plans. The restoration camunclear how long his garden was looked paign for the buildings is underway, yet after or maintained. The Queset estate was funding and rehabilitation plans for the eventually subdivided and some portions garden has yet to be finalized. However, as were sold by the family. Over the years, the the Italian Garden at Queset approaches property fell into disrepair and the Italian its centennial (2011), its significance as Garden was all but lost. an historic designed landscape has at last Although it is no longer threatened been recognized. ! with obliteration, the garden still faces © Copyright 2009 Office of James O’Day LLC O’Day · 5

Plan of the Italian Garden at Queset (Courtesy: The Ames Free Library/Illustration: Kath Holland).