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THE BARTOW-PELL MANSION MUSEUM’S spiral stair case, above. George Bartow’s bedroom, at right. A parlor contains what was once Aaron Burr’s table, below, along with a newspaper, dated July 26, 1837. Photo by Marisol Díaz
A century of gardening and glamour By Maya Rajamani mrajamani@riverdalepress.com
I
landts, to serve as members and patrons of the Garden Club. At its start, club members could spend the night at the mansion and were allowed to use the house and its library. In exchange for the lease from the city, members of the club vowed to renovate the dilapidated building and its grounds, investing approximately $100,000 between them for the restoration of the house and the construction of gardens. Last of its kind The grounds, unlike the lecture series, were not only for high society. The Garden Club opened the estate to host exhibitions, lectures and experimental planting for all. The house was also the group’s headquarters
for its first 30 years. The city eventually said the group could no longer lease the mansion, as it was public property. Still, the club’s involvement was a lucky break for the mansion — the only one of its kind still standing in the area. Others, including the Hunter Mansion and the Bowne House, were destroyed by the Department of Parks and Recreation under powerful urban planner Robert Moses. “They really saved this house from the fate of the other houses,” Ms. Bruzelius said of the Garden Club. The estate itself dates back to 1654, when an English doctor by the name of Thomas Pell purchased the land from the Native American Siwan-
THE TERRACE GARDEN at the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum underwent renovations a year ago.
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n the spring of 1914, a group of horticulture enthusiasts from New York were seeking headquarters for their newlyformed International Garden Club when they stumbled upon a dilapidated property in the Pelham Bay Park Area. Though it had fallen into disrepair, the group saw a future in the Grecian-style grey stone mansion, built in the late 1830s by New York businessman Robert Bartow. A century later, the Bartow-Pell mansion — now a designated city landmark and museum with gardens and landscapes open to the public — is celebrating its centennial. This past weekend, the Bartow-Pell Conservancy held a Moonlight Ball celebrating 100 years. The event honored Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. and noted preservationist Frank Emile Sanchis III. “We could actually have a centennial for the next couple years,” joked Ellen Bruzelius, executive director at the museum not far from Orchard Beach. She noted a number of milestones that took place after the International Garden Club leased the building from the city. Socialite Zelia Hoffman, born Krumbhaar Preston, was instrumental to the lease. She served as the club’s president from 1914 to 1921. A book called The Herbaceous Garden, by British plant connoisseur Alice Martineau, inspired Ms. Hoffman and a number of horticulturallyinclined friends to form their club. Crossing the Atlantic from England, Ms. Martineau’s’ stated purpose for a trip and lecture series was “increasing interest in fine gardening among wealthy society people.” Her trip was a success. Ms. Hoffman was able to convince a list of 400 friends, including the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers and the Van Cort-
oy. The original Pell home on the property, occupied by four generations of the family, burned down during the American Revolution. After Mr. Bartow built a mansion on the property in the 19th century, the Bartow-Pell Conservancy later improved on the home. Little by little since the 1940s, the organization has added antique furniture reminiscent of what the Bartow family might have used in their home. One piece Ms. Bruzelius describes as the crown jewel in the house is a bed made by French cabinetmaker Charles Honnoré Lannuier. Mr. Lannuier operated a cabinet shop on Broad Street in Manhattan from 1804 to 1819. Tangerine silk hangings cascade from the crown above the bed, a feature that would have provided sleepers with protection from drafts. The house also boasts a writing desk once owned by early American politico Aaron Burr, who was married to a Bartow. The conservancy restored the mansion’s formerly sunken garden last year, re-grading the slopes, installing an irrigation system, planting new garden beds and pruning trees to open up the mansion’s historic view of the water around Orchard Beach. Along with the centennial exhibition, called Grand Dames and Grand Plans: 100 Years of History at Bartow-Pell, the mansion offers tours of the great house. Students visit the mansion to learn lessons about family life in the 19th century, and there is a wigwam at the center of the museum’s Native American program, as well as a children’s garden. Ms. Bruzelius says the mansion and its grounds host about 13,000 visitors per year, not including wild turkeys and black squirrels who roam the land. “People don’t often think of going to the Bronx as going to the country, but this is countryside,” said Ms. Bruzelius. “It’s a beautiful place to come spend time and be outdoors.”