Book cover: Blue wooden tubs of purple and pink hydrangeas sit at the corners of a small reflecting pool, designed by Ellen Biddle Shipman for Gertrude and Frank Seiberling at their Ohio estate, about 1929. A brick pattern patio surrounds the pool. Blue benches appear behind a lawn in the background.
 
Two apple trees flank a brick walkway leading to a white, Chippendale-style gate. A dry-laid stone wall encloses a lawn with close-clipped shrubs in a garden designed by Shipman, in Chagrin Falls, Ohio.
Windsor T. White estate.
Chagrin Falls, Ohio.
(Photo by Carol Betsch)
 
Windsor T. White estate.
Chagrin Falls, Ohio.
(Photo by Carol Betsch)
 
English Garden, Stan Hywet Hall,
F. A. Seiberling estate, Akron, Ohio. (Photo by Carol Betsch)
 
A black-and-white photograph shows a brick pathway that leads to a house. The path is bordered by loose, multi-textured flowers and shrubs in the foreground at a garden by Shipman for the Misses Pruyn, in Easthampton, New York.
Mary and Neltje Pruyn garden, 1920, East Hampton, N. Y.
(Photo by Mattie Edwards
Hewitt, c. 1923. RMC-Cornell
University Library)
 
In this black-and-white photograph, a curvilinear path leads to a dovecote in the background. A large flowering hydrangea graces the foreground. Shipman designed this garden for Samuel Salvage in Glen Head, New York.
Rynwood, Samuel E. Salvage estate, Glen Head, N.Y.
(RMC-Cornell University Library)
 
Rectangular pool, Holmdene, Edward Lowe estate, Grand Rapids, Mich., 1921. (Photo by Mattie Edwards Hewitt, c. 1923.
RMC-Cornell University Library)
 
Walled garden, Old Farms,
Alanson L. Daniels estate, Wenham, Mass., 1913.
(Photo by Edith Hastings Tracy. RMC-Cornell University Library)
 
Garden, Girdle Ridge,
William F. Fahnestock estate, Katonah, N. Y., c. 1912.
(Photo by Jessie Tarbox Beals. RMC-Cornell University Library)
 

The Gardens of Ellen Biddle Shipman
Judith B. Tankard

Sagapress/Abrams

$39.95

To order, email info@lalh.org

Winner of the American Horticultural Society Book Award

“Fascinating, historic, poignant.”
—The New York Times

“It is a handsome book, valuable not only to historians and garden designers, but also to every garden maker. The details and explanations offered by Tankard reveal much of the garden designer’s art.” —George Waters, Pacific Horticulture

 

BETWEEN 1914 AND 1950, Ellen Biddle Shipman (1869–1950) designed more than 650 gardens from Cornish, New Hampshire, to New Orleans. Her imaginative approach merged elements from the Colonial Revival and Arts and Crafts movements with a distinctive ability to create sensual, secluded landscapes. Despite the disadvantages of being a divorced mother of three, Shipman succeeded in establishing a thriving New York City practice. She was an advocate for women in the profession and trained several other successful designers in her all-female office.

In The Gardens of Ellen Biddle Shipman author Judith Tankard describes Shipman’s remarkable life and discusses fifty of her major works. Richly illustrated with plans and photographs, the book reveals Shipman’s ability to combine plants for dramatic impact and create spaces of the utmost intimacy.

An introduction by Leslie Rose Close discusses Shipman’s work in the context of other successful women in the profession. The afterword by John Franklin Miller describes the restoration of the Shipman garden at Stan Hywet Hall in Akron, Ohio. Appendixes include geographically arranged client lists.