A M E R I C A’S
EDEN P R OJ E C T U P DAT E JANUARY 2019
America’s Eden • Progress Report America’s Eden: Newport Landscapes through the Ages is a research and publication project dedicated to documenting Newport as a cultural landscape of national significance. John R. Tschirch, Architectural Historian and Honorary Member, The Garden Club of America, is the lead scholar. This project is organized in three phases: I. Research; II. Writing; III. Design and Publication. John has completed Phase I after one year of extensive research and investigation of archives from Boston, New York and Washington to Newport. John has now begun writing the text for the book and organizing a rich array of images, including paintings, photographs and garden plans. The Newport Tree Conservatory staff, with John Tschirch, have met with a talented British publisher who has submitted a formal proposal for the design, publication and marketing of the book. 2 018 L EC T URE S As part of his research, John has lectured on Newport landscapes, and the America’s Eden project, at several organizations: - The American Decorative Arts Forum. The Legion of Honor. San Francisco, CA. - The Tuxedo Park Historical Society. Tuxedo Park, NY. - The Victorian Society Summer School. Newport, RI - Rhode Island School of Design: A Four Part Course in Landscape History. Providence, RI On the cover: Frances Benjamin Johnston, Armsea Hall. Courtesy Library of Congress. Photo circa 1920. 2
Research Update This update is organized by historic period and serves as a summary of some of the remarkable materials John has discovered during his research. The journals and letters of explorers, estate owners, foresters, gardeners, writers and painters provide first hand accounts of the landscape of Newport. Paintings, engravings, photographs and garden planning documents reveal the many forms of landscape design in the city through the centuries. C OLONIA L SET TLE M E NT Europeans did not encounter a virgin wilderness when they first encountered the landscape of Aquidneck Island. The land had been cultivated by Native Americans for centuries. Giovanni da Verrazano, an Italian explorer in the service of the French King, wrote in 1524, “We reached a land…where we found an excellent harbor…We frequently went five to six leagues into the interior, and found it as pleasant as I can possibly describe, and suitable for every kind of cultivation…For these fields…are open and free of any obstacles or trees, and so fertile that any kind of seed would produce excellent crops.” At the birth of the new Republic, Jedediah Morse produced American Geography; or A View of the Present Situation of the United States (1789), in which he wrote of Newport and its environs, “The Island is exceedingly pleasant and healthful, and the women beautiful…Travelers, with propriety, call it the Eden of America.” 3
EA RLY G AR DE N ARCH ITE CTUR E The summer house of Abraham Redwood (c. 1766, depicted in the photo on the right), once at his country estate and now on the grounds of the Redwood Library and Athenæum, is one of the earliest surviving American garden pavilions from the Colonial period. Its octagonal shape, inspired by models in James Gibbs’ A Book of Architecture (1728), allowed for many views of the landscape. Renowned architect John Russell Pope created the garden setting for the summer house in 1917. (Summer house photo courtesy of the Redwood Library.)
Detail from the De Barres Map, 1780. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. A Plan of the City and Port of Newport with parts of Rhode Island occupied by the French army under the order of M. Le Comte de Rochambeau and the French squadron under the command M Le Chevalier Detouches. The American Revolution had unexpected consequences for Newport’s landscape. The most sophisticated European cartographers, in the service of the British and French armies, produced maps of superior quality for the war effort. This map depicts the topography of Newport and documents its many terrains, from the open meadowland of present day Bellevue Avenue to the rolling hills and secluded valleys of Ocean Drive.
4
5
John Frederick Kensett. Beacon Rock. 1857. National Gallery of Art T H E PIC T URE SQUE L ANDSCAPE : N EW P ORT IN TH E VICTOR IAN AGE Leading artists and writers celebrated Newport’s landscape, conferring a mythic status upon the city. “…a thousand delicate secret places…small, mild points and promontories, far away little lonely sandy coves, rock-set lily-sheeted ponds, almost hidden, and shallow Arcadian summer haunted valleys, with the sea just over some stony shoulder; a whole world that called out to the long afternoons of youth.” —Henry James. “The Sense of Newport” in The American Scene, 1907
N EW P ORT C OT TAGE S AND TH E IR GA RDE N S The asymmetry and curving lines of the picturesque style dominated in Newport’s early summer cottages from the 1840s through the 1880s. The city became a veritable laboratory of architecture and landscape innovation by the nation’s leading designers. 6
John P. Newell. Kingscote. Illustration, circa 1850.
The Breakers Childrens’ Cottage. Photograph, circa 1886, Cornell University. The arts and crafts inspired garden at the children’s cottage was created by the Boston based Ernest Bowditch, who planned the landscapes at The Breakers and the adjacent Vinland and Wakehurst estates. Bowditch envisioned Ochre Point as one harmonious open meadow with views down to the sea. 7
EVOLVING L ANDSCAPE S: BE AC ON RO CK CASE STUDY
Beacon Rock. Photograph, circa 1895. Private Collection. Designed by McKim, Mead and White in 1887, Beacon Rock is an example of the challenges and opportunities posed by Newport’s varied topography. Sited on a rocky outcropping in Newport Harbor, the Morgan estate was planted in evergreens and ivy, which by the early 1900s had turned a once barren site into a lush hillside.
Beacon Rock. Postcard, circa 1915.
8
T H E ART OF SCE NE RY: T H E DEVELOPM E NT OF O CE AN DR I V E The artist and writer, George Champlin Mason, recorded the south coast of Newport prior to the establishment of Ocean Drive in 1867. This rare view depicts the open, treeless meadowlands created by centuries of deforestation and farming beginning in the colonial era. Mason championed the creation of Ocean Drive as critical to Newport’s development as a summer resort. Ocean Avenue at Baileys Beach. Atlas of the City of Newport, 1876.
George Champlin Mason. Rocky Farm and Cherry Neck. Oil on canvas, 1854. Collection of Redwood Library and Athenaeum. 9
The Reef. Brenton Point. Frances Benjamin Johnston. Photograph, c. 1920. Built in 1885 by Sturgis and Bingham, with a landscape design by Frederick Law Olmsted, The Reef featured wooded groves planted to shield shade loving flowers and plants from the ocean breezes at this most exposed site on Ocean Drive.
Ocean Avenue. Postcard, circa 1920. Private Collection. Estates, from left to right: Avalon, the Busk House and Wildacre set in rocky landscapes originally featuring succulents, rosa rugosa and evergreens adapted to the maritime site. 10
Berry Hill. Photo, circa 1920. Private Collection. The McKim, Mead and White designed “Berry Hill” is a focal point of the 365-acre parcel known as the King-Glover-Bradley Plat, featuring a serpentine road system designed by Frederick Law Olmsted in the mid-1880s. Respecting the natural contours of the area’s rolling hills, Olmsted devised one of the earliest picturesque developments in the nation.
THE URBAN FOREST: NEWPORT’S HISTORIC TREESCAPES ON THE STREETSCAPES
Right: Childe Hassam. Duke Street. Oil on canvas. 1901. Private Collection.
11
In 1913, the Olmsted Brothers produced a landmark publication for the City of Newport. The Proposed Improvements for Newport was both visionary and comprehensive in its approach to identifying and recommending preservation approaches to a historic urban forest and scenic views. Washington Street. Photograph, 1913. Olmsted Brothers, Proposed Improvements for Newport. C L AS SIC AL L ANDSCAPE S: NEW P ORT IN TH E GILDE D AGE
Detail. Landscape Plan of Ochre Court, circa 1890. The firm of Olmsted, Olmsted and Eliot produced Newport’s first classical revival style landscape to complement Richard Morris Hunt’s French Renaissance chateau for Ogden Goelet. The plan introduced dominant 12
forecourts, parterre gardens and terraces on straight axes to create a formal frame around the house. This was a distinct departure from the serpentine paths and irregularly places grouping of trees of earlier Victorian landscapes in the picturesque manner. The Olmsted Brothers created over thirty Newport garden designs in addition to a comprehensive study of the city’s urban forest.
Miramar. Photograph, circa 1920. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Frances Benjamin Johnston. The Italian Garden. Hammersmith Farm. Photograph, circa 1920. Courtesy the Library of Congress. 13
F OL L IES AND FAR M S: N EW P ORT G AR DE N ARCH ITE CTUR E
Richard and Joseph Howland Hunt. Detail of drawing, circa 1912. Mrs. O.H.P. Belmont’s Chinese Tea House. Marble House. Collection of the American Institute of Architects.
Frances Benjamin Johnson. Surprise Valley Farm. Photograph detail, circa 1920. Courtesy the Library of Congress 14
LOST L AND SCAPE S: T H E RISE AND FALL OF NEWPORT GA RDE N S
Villa Rosa. Demolished, 1962. Postcard, circa 1910. Private collection.
Chetwode. Demolished in 1977. Photograph, circa 1945. Private Collection . 15
T H E WORKING GAR DE N: N EW P ORT ’S GAR DE NE R S AND F LORI ST S Frances Benjamin Johnston. Photograph, circa 1920. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Gardeners at work at Beacon Hill House, the Arthur Curtiss James estate. Frances Benjamin Johnston was a pioneering photographer. She served as the White House photographer for President Teddy Roosevelt and produced a series of images on several of Newport estates, notably Beacon Hill House, Hammersmith Farm and The Breakers.
Notes on flowers for the gardens at Miramar from the Day Book (1920) of T.J. Brown Landscaping. Newport, RI.
16
L IVING L EG E NDS: SPEC IMEN TR E E S OLD AND NEW For over three centuries, Newport has played host to a wide variety of specimen trees from across the globe.
Moving Newport trees, circa 1885. Inset: European weeping beeches. 17
GA RDENS AS TH E ATE R : F LOR AL SPECTACLE S AND GAR DE N FET E S Rare specimen trees, extraordinary gardeners and flowery social spectacles made Newport a focal point of 19th century horticulture and landscape design. Right, Mrs. O.H.P. Belmont’s Automobile Parade. Photograph, September 8, 1899. Collection of the William K. Vanderbilt, Jr. Estate. Centerport, New York. Celebrating the passion for the new sport of automobile driving and the talents of Newport’s gardeners and florists, Mrs. Belmont’s event featured flower bedecked cars in an obstacle course race on the grounds of Belcourt and a late day parade down Bellevue Avenue.
Fete at Rosecliff. Photograph, 1912. Town and Country. 18
MODERNISM ON TH E L AND: MODERN A RTIST S AND MONUM E N TA 7 4 The MONUMENTA exhibition of 1974 used Newport's landscapes as a vast canvas for the work of leading 20th century artists.
Anne Healy. Hot Lips. Photograph, 1974. Crimmins Collection. Salve Regina University.
Christo and Jean-Claude. Design for Wrapping King’s Beach. Photograph, 1974. Crimmins Collection. Salve Regina University 19
Beaulieu. Photograph, circa 1950. Private Collection.
N E W P O R T T R E E C O N S E R VA N C Y PO Box 863 • Newport, RI 02840 • (401) 324-9204 trees@newporttreeconservancy.com