Private Owner Buys Val Verde

Sergey Grishin, a Russian American businessman, is the delighted new owner of Val Verde, a 1915 estate designed by Bertram Goodhue, with 1920s and ‘30s landscape development by Lockwood de Forest Jr., in Montecito, California. “My idea is to bring the house back to its original grandeur and glory. No lot splits, no estate sales.”

Grishin contacted LALH with news of the pending sale after he saw a posting on lalh.org. “I have often visited your website,” he explained. “I love what you do.” Val Verde and Lockwood de Forest Jr. are featured in the LALH book and exhibition A Genius for Place: American Landscapes of the Country Place Era.

Launching Country Life, Celebrating the Series

A decade after publishing Country Life: A Handbook of Agriculture, Horticulture, and Landscape Gardening (1859), the landscape gardener Robert Morris Copeland was commissioned to design portions of Frederick Billings’s estate in Woodstock, Vermont. It was fitting, then, for LALH to launch the new reprint of Country Life at the property, now the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park, where the stewardship principles urged by Copeland and practiced by Billings still inform forest management. In August, park Superintendent Rolf Diamant hosted a book signing for Bill Tishler, professor emeritus of landscape architecture at the University of Wisconsin, who wrote the introduction to the reprint edition. The event took place in the park’s new Forest Center, a Platinum LEED building. Other park employees, including Nora J. Mitchell, director of the Conservation Study Institute, and Resource Manager Christina Marts, joined the festivities, along with LALH Founding President Nancy Turner and LALH Executive Director Robin Karson.

The publication of Country Life and Garrett Eckbo’s Landscape for Living (1950) marked the completion of the ten-volume ASLA Centennial Reprint Series. To celebrate, LALH hosted a reception at the ASLA annual meeting in Chicago, attended by several LALH authors and supporters.

Take advantage of the celebratory special offer from LALH and the University of Massachusetts Press: Buy all ten volumes of the ASLA Centennial Reprint Series as a set for a special price of $250. Bought separately, they would retail for about $380. Quantities are limited! To order, call UMass Press: 800-537-5487.

National Parks: The Movie—and a Coda

By now, many armchair travelers are glued to the new PBS series by Ken Burns, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, which began airing on September 27. Viewers inspired to delve more deeply into the park system’s evolution can read the award-winning LALH book Mission 66: Modernism and the National Park Dilemma by Ethan Carr, who is now also an LALH trustee. Mentioned in Episode Six of the series, Mission 66 was a controversial program to address overcrowding in the parks. Carr’s book, which carries an endorsement from Burns on the jacket, examines the program’s significance and explores the influence of midcentury modernism on landscape design and park planning.

A landscape historian at the University of Virginia and editor of the forthcoming LALH book series Designing the American Park, Carr earned a screen credit in the PBS film. (“It’s at the end,” he quips, “just past the caterers.”) With the upcoming centennial of the National Park Service in 2016, he says, “the film is airing in time to build the popular support that can convince Congress to act. We should all expect big re-investments in state and national parks.”

Photography Underway for Manning Book

Since 2004, a nationwide network of LALH volunteer researchers has been tracking down information about landscapes—from country estates to city park systems—designed by Warren H. Manning (1860–1938). A generous grant from the International Music and Art Foundation is making it possible for photographer Carol Betsch to frame these landscapes through her lens. These images will illustrate an LALH book about Manning’s life and work (2012).

This summer, Betsch was shooting the fields and gardens of Tranquillity Farm, a privately owned country estate in Connecticut originally designed for industrialist J. H. Whittemore. Manning took over the project from the Olmsted firm in 1896 and continued work there until 1928. Ellen Shipman, likely referred by Manning, designed a walled garden near the former McKim, Mead & White mansion, razed in the 1980s. Betsch heads next to Chicago to photograph traces of Manning’s work for Cyrus McCormick Jr. and other clients in the region.

For Sale: Jensen's Ravinia Studio Property

For several years, landscape architect Jens Jensen (1860–1951) ran his practice out of the home office and studio he built in Ravinia (now Highland Park), Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. The property, at 950 Dean Avenue, features Jensen’s first “council ring”—a stone seating circle with a central fire pit—and a meditative forest clearing and dramatic ravines. Jensen sold it when he moved north to Wisconsin in the 1930s, and it is now on the market again.

After its latest renovation, the post-Jensen house (five bedrooms, five full baths) and Jensen studio are listed at $3,250,000: “Stone pillar entry with winding driveway lead the way to this exceptional 3 acre Ravinia property bordered by ravines and offering original Jens Jensen historic studio-coach house, gardens, stonework, & fire pit.” Check the listing for details, or call Karen Poteshman Skurie at 847-266-4745.

Hutcheson’s Home Landscape Restored

Reflecting many of the ideas laid out in The Spirit of the Garden (1923), the home landscape of Martha Brookes Hutcheson “became a physical manifestation of Hutcheson’s talent and design skill and an expression of her garden-making principles,” notes Patricia O’Donnell, principal of Heritage Landscapes. Since 2000, O’Donnell’s firm has researched, planned, and overseen the restoration of the formal garden at the 100-acre New Jersey property where Hutcheson (1871–1959), one of the country’s first female landscape architects, and her husband, William, lived from 1911 to 1959.

Now known as Bamboo Brook and managed by the Morris County Park Commission, the landscape is in the second phase of the restoration—rebuilding the connected system of scenic pools, a stream, and a circular tank—which is funded by the New Jersey Historic Trust/State of New Jersey and the Morris County Historic Preservation Trust. “These water features capture rain and spring water, and they’re built of native stone masonry,” says Charley Zafonte, director of horticulture and natural resources for the park commission. The project will be finished this fall. Read about Hutcheson’s design principles in the LALH reprint of The Spirit of the Garden.

A River Flows More Freely

In 1893, landscape architect Charles Eliot (1859–1897) urged the formation of “an executive body charged with the duty of defending and asserting the interest of the whole community in the right treatment of [the Charles, the Mystic, and the Neponset] rivers . . . A great benefit to the public would practically be assured from the start.” In the case of the Neponset, industry trumped conservation, and it has taken a century for the public to begin reclaiming this river from its industrial past.

This summer, the Neponset River Watershed Association shared the good news that public agencies, spurred by citizens’ groups, have agreed to restore seventeen miles of ancient spawning waters for herring and shad. The fish will get a boost upriver after workers dredge PCB-laden sediments behind two dams on the lower part of the river, remove one of the dams, and lower a second dam so that fish can swim over it. Ian Cooke, the watershed association’s executive director, says Eliot’s successful conservation of nearby public lands, including the Blue Hills, “allowed people to grasp the value of the river for conservation and recreation.” Read more about Eliot’s conservation legacy in the LALH reprint of Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect (1902).

An Upbeat Take on Central Park’s Losses

Only two weeks after a violent windstorm had decimated about 250 trees in the northwest corner of Central Park, Doug Blonsky was ready to look on the bright side. “Look, I’m going to be positive,” declared Blonsky, executive director of the Central Park Conservancy, the friends group that helps New York City care for its urban oasis. A sigh escaped when he described the loss of red oaks dating from the park’s early years, but Blonsky quickly turned to the future the mid-August storm had so suddenly redefined. “I look forward to opportunities for new plantings, and we’re seeing some new views that weren’t open before.”

But was this what Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the park’s original designers, and Samuel Parsons Jr., the long-time steward of their design, intended? “It’s hard to tell whether that was part of the design intent,” Blonsky acknowledged, “but their overall vision was to draw visitors through different experiences. For instance, you’d spot the Bethesda angel through an opening in the trees, and the view would draw you toward it.” Over the years, tree growth has swallowed up some of these beckoning glimpses, he pointed out. “The Great Hill, at 106th Street, was so heavy with tree canopy before the storm that you couldn’t see the skyline. Now you can see openings, with the skyline popping out.” To read more about historical conservation challenges in Central Park, see Francis Kowsky’s introduction to Samuel Parsons Jr.’s The Art of Landscape Architecture.

Fall Recipe from LALH: Harvest Vegetable Gratin

This version of the classic summer dish is more about the vegetables than the cheese and would be just as good without it. To make sure that the vegetables remain crisp during cooking, remove excess water from the squash and tomatoes by salting them an hour before you prepare the casserole. Seasoning is key—creating a thyme oil baste makes the flavors of these fresh vegetables pop. The finished casserole makes a great side dish or a main course alongside a garden salad.

Ingredients:

Thyme oil baste:
2 tbs fresh thyme
2 shallots
3 cloves garlic
½ c extra virgin olive oil
kosher salt and pepper to taste

Casserole layers:
2–3 tbs kosher salt
2 medium sized washed and peeled potatoes
2 medium sized zucchinis
2 small peeled eggplants (I like the Japanese eggplants, but you can use any kind)
1 medium summer squash
1 medium pattypan squash
1 large or 2 medium tomatoes
½ c grated Asiago cheese (optional)

Directions:
Cut the zucchini, squash, and tomatoes into ¼ inch slices. Combine zucchini and squash in a large bowl and liberally douse with salt, pour into a colander. Allow the zucchini and squash to drain for at least 45 minutes. Lay the tomatoes out on a cookie sheet lined with paper towel and salt on each side. Leave for 40 minutes. Cut potatoes and eggplant into ¼ inch thick slices and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 400F degrees.

In a food processor blend the olive oil, thyme, shallots, and garlic until smooth. Check flavor and add salt and pepper to taste. Add some of the thyme oil to the bottom of a 9 x 13-inch roasting pan. Layer the potato slices in the bottom, overlapping slightly if desired. Pat dry all of the squash and zucchini slices and layer in turns with the eggplant, making sure to baste each layer with the thyme oil until all of the vegetables except the tomatoes are used. Layer the tomatoes on top. Dab thoroughly with the thyme oil and place into the oven for 40 minutes. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with the Asiago cheese and place back in the oven for another 10 minutes or until the cheese begins to brown. Any leftover thyme oil can be used to season roast chicken.

Recipe by Jessica Dawson.

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