The Lost Gardens of Alder Manor

The Lost Gardens of Alder Manor

by James O’Day ASLA

D

iscovering a lost and forgotten garden is one of those magical experiences – the very essence of Shelley’s romantic Ozymandias. Alder Manor is one of those places. Hidden within plain sight, it possesses the ruins of a once grand landscape brimming with a trove of antiquities.

It is a liminal garden – an ethereal threshold between this and another world.

Perched on a bluff overlooking the Hudson River and the New Jersey Palisades, Alder Manor is a Renaissance-revival palazzo built for Colonel William Boyce Thompson

(1869-1930) by architects Carrere & Hastings in 1912. Thompson chose this site as the panorama of the Palisades reminded him of the rugged grandeur of his native Montana.

Located just north of Manhattan in Yonkers, the town was still considered a rural idyll in the early 20th century, and had become an elegant residential community for many of New York’s elite.

Thompson took an unabashed interest in planning the estate’s gardens – they would have the imprimatur of this cultivated man who relished “mining” history as much as

View of Gateway in the Walled Garden with heraldic, terra cotta eagle resembling those at Villa D’Este, Tivoli, 2010

he did copper, silver, and diamonds.

William Boyce Thompson was born in the town of Alder Gulch, Montana, where his Canadian father had business and mining interests.

He later attended Phillips Exeter Academy and Columbia University’s School of Mines. After graduating, he returned to the West and founded the Newmont Mining Company and attracted investors like the Guggenheims, JP Morgan, and Bernard Baruch. After making a fortune in mining, Thompson returned to New York to try his hand at Wall Street.

During this period, he served as the director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Like many of his peers, Thompson championed public service and philathropy. He was appointed to the Commission of Belgian Relief, which provided aid when Belgium faced a food crisis after being invaded by Germany in the First World War. His subsequent service as a Red Cross delegate – canvassing famine ravaged Russia – fostered his interest in world hunger and sustainable agricultural practices. He earned the jocular nickname “The Red of Wall Street” for advocating financial aid to Russia. Honoring his wartime services, President Harding awarded him the military title of “Colonel.”

In 1919, he established the Thompson Institute for Plant Research with a $10 million endowment, and built the institute’s campus across the street from Alder Manor.

Despite the prominence of both Thompson and Carrere & Hastings, there is little documentation on Alder

(above) Classical temple in the Walled Garden modeled after Tempietto di Minerva, Villa Borghese, Rome (below) Allegorical fountain in the Water Garden modeled after the Medici fountain at Villa di Castello, Florence

Manor and its extraordinary gardens.

Yet in a recently discovered aerial photograph (undated), the image captures the entire estate – including the gardens and the impressive Paxton-like hothouses replete with a monumental glazed dome (now demolished).

The estate had three principal formal gardens. All remain extant but with varying degrees of integrity.

The Walled Garden on the northside of the house is the most integral. The West Terrace Garden and the Water Garden have suffered the greatest loss due to partial demolitions and grossly insensitive building schemes.

The surrounding landscape with its varied topography was treated in the Pictuesque style, punctuated with greenswards, woodlands, and carriageways.

The gardens at Alder Manor are an exceptional design legacy from

(above) Alder Manor garden facade, loggia with monumental Palladian arch modeled after Villa Medici, Rome (left) Photographic portrait of Colonel William Boyce Thompson

America’s Country Place Era (18901940). Thompson was a consummate art collector, and he reportedly scoured Sotheby catalogues for European treasures. He went as far as to import the Baroque facade of a 16th century Italian church as a folly in the Walled Garden. The garden is exemplar for its collection of Etruscan, Roman, Romanesque, and Renaissance artifacts. They are the fundamental currency found throughout the design. Ancient stone columns, sarcophagi, busts, cartouche, urns, wellheads, and bas-reliefs create a sumptuous al fresco museum. A cloistered lapidarim shelters ancient archeaologi-

In those rare moments when demons sleep, is born a work that stands for all time.

-J.C. Sheperd & Geoffrey Jellicoe Italian Gardens of the Renaissance

cal fragments. Alder Manor was the Colonel’s capriccio – a showcase for his trove of antiquities and treasures displayed with brio.

Colonel Thompson and his team of designers were clearly fond of exploiting Italian Cinquecento and Seicento archetypes. The Walled Garden is the essential Italian secret garden – il giardino segreto. Cosseted by stucco walls with exuberant Rococo scrolled pediments and urn finials, it is reminiscent of the parapet at Villa Capponi in Florence. Another principal feature – a strategically placed temple – appears to be styled after the Tempietto di Minerva from the Villa Borghese gardens in Rome.

(above) The exedra in the Walled Garden with Breccia marble columns (below) An arcade in the Walled Garden

Nearly a 100 years since it was built, the gardens of Alder Manor remain a mystery. While Thompson undoudtedly played a principal role in planning, it remains unclear whether it bears Carrere & Hastings’ imprimatur or that of another noted landscape architect from the period.

After his death in 1930, Thompson’s widow continued to live at Alder Manor for another 20 years. In 1950, the Archbishopric of New York bought the property and for the next 43 years Alder Manor served as an educational facility. In 1993, Iona College closed Alder Manor, citing financial hardship, and the City of

Alder Manor was the Colonel’s capricio – a showcase for his trove of antiquities and treasures displayed with brio.

Yonkers purchased the property.

In 2004, Alder Manor was purchased by private investors with the intention of preserving the house and gardens. The property was listed in the National Register in 1984 and was designated a local landmark in 1988.

Ironically, the gardens at Alder Manor have now taken on the romanticized – yet untenable – dereliction of its 16th century Italian archetypes.

While possible demolition no longer seems eminent, the single greatest threat to this cultural landscape is further loss of integrity to entropy, vandalism, and deferred maintenance.

As its centennial year approaches, Alder Manor merits a sustainable preservation strategy to protect its legacy for the future. !

James O’Day is an Historical Landscape Architect and is currently writing a play set in a mythic Italian garden.

Email: jamesoday@aol.com © Copyright 2011 Office of James O’Day LLC

(above) View of Alder Manor through a bosque from the West Terrace Garden (left) Midas fountainhead in the Water Garden (below) Roman sarcaphagus and architectural elements appropriated as a water feature in the Walled Garden