Beatrix Farrand

Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., USA site of her best known garden design

Beatrix Jones Farrand (June 19, 1872 – February 28, 1959) was a landscape gardener and landscape architect in the United States. Her career included commissions to design about 110 gardens for private residences, estates and country homes, public parks, botanic gardens, college campuses, and the White House. Only a few of her major works survive: Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC, the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden, on Mounr Desert, Maine and elements of the campuses of Princeton, Yale, and Occidental.^[1]

Farrand was one of the founding eleven members, and the only woman, of the American Society of Landscape Architects. Beatrix Farrand is one of the most accomplished persons, and women, recognized in both the first decades of the landscape architecture profession and the centuries of landscape garden design arts and accomplishments.

Early years

Beatrix Jones Farrand was born in New York City on June 19, 1872, into a family among whom she liked to claim were "five generations of gardeners."^[2] Her mother was Mary Cadwalader Rawle (1850–1923), whose father was lawyer William Henry Rawle (1823–1889).^[3] Her father was Frederic Rhinelander Jones (1846–1918).^[4]

Farrand enjoyed long seasons at the family's summer home Reef Point Estate in Bar Harbor on Mount Desert Island in Maine. She was the niece of Edith Wharton^[5] and lifelong friend of Henry James. Farrand was an avid observer of the island's nature in her youth, and her experiments with challenging sites on the Reef Point gardens her interest in design and horticulture and planning. Throughout her life she referred to herself as a "landscape gardener," rather than a landscape architect.

At age twenty Farrand was introduced by his wife to one of her primary mentors, the botanist Charles Sprague Sargent, who at Harvard University was both a professor of horticulture at the Bussey Institute and the founding director of the Arnold Arboretum in Boston, Massachusetts. Farrand moved to Brookline, Massachusetts where she lived in Sargent's home in 1893 and studied landscape gardening, for which there was no specialized school at the time, botany, and land planning. She wanted to learn drafting to scale, elevation rendering, surveying, and engineering, and so studied at the Columbia School of Mines of Columbia University in New York City, New York, under the direction of Professor William Ware.

Farrand drew influence in her design from her several tours through Europe, where she visited and noted copiously in her journal many gardens throughout Italy, France, Holland, Germany, and England. She was also inspired by these and other landscape traditions, distilling their influences into her designs. Her style of designing garden rooms, defined outdoor spaces which transition distinctly from one to another, was inspired by studying Italian Renaissance gardens and villas in her travels. She was influenced in using native plant species from: her many successful Reef Point experiences; studying the contemporary books from the U.S. and abroad advocating the advantages of native palettes; and from visiting the influential British garden authors William Robinson at Gravetye Manor in Sussex, and Gertrude Jekyll at Munstead Wood in Surrey, both in England. Jekyll's series of thematic gardening books emphasized the importance and value of natural plantings and were influential in the U.S. In 1913 Beatrix married Max Farrand, the accomplished historian at Stanford University in California and Yale University in Connecticut, and the first director of the Huntington Library in California.

Landscape design career

She began practicing landscape architecture in 1895, working from the upper floor of her mother's brownstone house on East Eleventh Street in New York. Sinnce women were excluded from public projects, her first designs were residential gardens, beginning with some for neighboring Bar Harbor residents. With the help of her mother and her aunt Edith Wharton's social connections, she was introduced to many prominent people, which led to working on a variety of significant projects on America's East Coast, Midwest, and California, and England. Within three years she was prominent in her field that she was chosen the only woman among the founders of the American Society of Landscape Architects, though through life she preferred the English term "landscape gardener".

Farrand did the initial site and planting planning for the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. in 1899.

In 1912, she designed the walled residential garden, Bellefield, for Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Newbold in Hyde Park, New York. In addition to being the earliest extant example of her residential designs, this exquisite walled garden, now restored, is the only known pairing of works by two prominent designers of that era—Farrand and the architectsMcKim, Mead, & White—who remodeled the Newbolds' eighteenth-century house.^[6]

For the White House the first Mrs. Wilson, Ellen Loise Axson Wilson, had commissioned Beatrix Farrand to design the East Colonial Garden (now redesigned as the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden) and the West Garden (now the redesigned White House Rose Garden) in 1913. After Mrs. Wilson's August 1914 death the project languished until the second Mrs. Wilson, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, had their installation restarted and completed in 1916.^[7] She received the commission from J. Pierpont Morgan to design the Morgan Library grounds in New York City, and continued as a consultant for thirty years (1913–1943).^[8]

Dumbarton Oaks site plan

Her most notable work was at the Dumbarton Oaks estate in the Georgetown district of Washington, D.C. for Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss (1922–1940). Her design was inspired by her European ventures, especially from the Italian Renaissance gardens, and consisted of an establishing a sophisticated relationship between the architectural and natural environments, with formal terraced gardens stepping a down steep slope and transitioning to a more naturalistic aesthetic approaching the creek. Dumbarton Oaks is considered one of the best American neo-classicist gardens.^[9]

In 1928 her husband accepted the position as the first Director of The Huntington Library (1927–1941) in San Marino near Pasadena and Los Angeles, California.^[10] They moved to California but Farrand had trouble building a clientele in that state.^[11] William Hertrich had long standing dominion of the Botanical Gardens at the Huntington. The landscape designers Florence Yoch and Louise Council, and Lockwood DeForest Jr., among others, were already well established there. Her few projects came via friends, such as the Bliss winter and retirement estate, 'Casa Dorinda', in Montecito, California and the patronage of Mildred Bliss's mother, Anna Blakely Bliss, for the nearby Santa Barbara Botanic Garden project. In the Los Angeles area she had several commissions each with astronomer George Ellery Hale and architect Myron Hunt. With the latter she worked on projects at Occidental College and the California Institute of Technology (CalTech).^[12]

Farrand commuted cross-country by train for her eastern projects, such as the design and supervision of the Chinese inspired garden at 'The Eyrie' for Abby Aldrich Rockefeller on Mount Desert Island in Seal Harbor, Maine (1926–35). This was the era of the automobile, and in her designs Farrand applied principles learned earlier from Frederick Law Olmsted's drives at the Arnold Arboretum and the Biltmore Estate of George Washington Vanderbilt II. John D. Rockefeller sought out and funded Farrand to design planting plans for subtle carriage roads at Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island, Maine, near her Reef Point home (c.1930).^[13] Their use continues at the Park.

Extant Farrand private gardens in the eastern U.S. are: the Bliss family's Dumbarton Oaks in Georgetown, Washington, D.C.; the Harkness summer home 'Eolia' in Waterford, Connecticut (1918–1924), now preserved as the Harkness Memorial State Park; and the Rockefellers' estate 'The Eyrie' in Seal Harbor, Maine.^[14] She also collaborated with Edith Wharton on landscape and garden design for The Mount, Wharton's home in Lenox, Massachusetts, which is open to visitors from May–October. Henry James introduced her to Theodate Pope Riddle, "one of her most fascinating clients" who owned the estate 'Hill-Stead' (1913), now preserved as the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, Connecticut.^[15] In 1942, with Walter Macomber, she designed the gardens at Green Spring near Alexandria, Virginia.^[16]

The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, for California native plants, represents her talent in Santa Barbara, California. In England her evolving major project, 'Dartington Hall', was for Dorothy Whitney Straight Elmhirst in Devon (1932–37).^[17] The Reef Point Collection of her library, drawings and herbarium specimens are archived in the Environmental Design Archives at the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley (U.C. Berkeley) campus, except for the Dumbarton Oaks documents located at the library there, and the Arnold Arboretum drawings in their archives, both under the stewardship of Harvard.^[18]

College campuses

Farrand's campus designs were based on three concepts: plants that bloomed throughout the academic year, emphasizing architecture as well as hiding flaws, and using upright and climbing plants so that the small spaces between buildings would not seem reduced in scale. Her designs are noted for their practicality, simplicity and ease of maintenance.^[19] She was the first consulting landscape architect for Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey (1912–1943). As new buildings are constructed at Princeton now, architects are often referred to Farrand's papers at U.C. Berkeley. She was the consulting landscape architect at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut for twenty-three years (1923–45), with projects including the Marsh Botanical Garden. She later went on to improve a dozen other campuses including the University of Chicago (1929–1943). along with Southern California's Occidental College and the California Institute of Technology Beatrix Farrand completed design work for the Pennsylvania School for Horticulture for Women (1931–32). Later she was also the landscape consultant to the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1946–50).^[20]

Later life

During the last part of her life Farrand devoted herself to creating a landscape study center at Reef Point, Maine. Here she continued developing the extensive garden and preparing the property for a transition to a public study center. She publishing the Reef Point Gardens Bulletin (1946–1955) in which she reported on the progress of the gardens and center.^[21] After a wildfire on the island and facing a lack of funding to complete and ensure the continued operation of a center she made a remarkable decision in 1955 to discontinue the preparations, dismantle the garden, sell the property, and use the proceeds for her last years. John D. Rockefeller purchased all Reef Point's larger plants for his Asticou Azalea Garden in Northeast Harbor, Maine, which continue to flower.^[22] Approximately 2000 herbarium specimens were given to the University and Jepson Herbaria at the University of California, Berkeley where they serve as a permanent record of her choice of plants and localities.

Farrand lived at and spent the last three years of her life at Garland Farm, the home of friends, on Mount Desert Island, Maine. It was here that she created her final garden, an intimate space in keeping with the size of the property. At age 86 Beatrix Farrand died at the Mount Desert Island Hospital on February 28, 1959.^[22]

The Garland Farm was purchased by the Beatrix Farrand Society on January 9, 2004. The society's mission is "to foster the art and science of horticulture and landscape design, with emphasis on the life and work of Beatrix Farrand." It plans to revive Reef Point's original educational mission, with the establishment of a reference library and collections, regional trial gardens, educational programs, and preserve her garden.^[23][24]

Technique and style

Farrand believed in using native plant materials whenever possible to connect the natural and the designed landscape. Her style often used an impressionistic palette of plant color and texture as a counterpoint to her more formal constructed garden elements.

References

Further reading

• The Last Garden of Beatrix Farrand by Patrick Chassé (Maine Olmsted Alliance)
• Jane Brown (February 1, 1995). Beatrix: The Gardening Life of Beatrix Farrand, 1872-1959. Viking, Penguin Group. ISBN 978-0-670-83217-0. 

External links

• Dumbarton Oaks Official Dumbarton Oaks website
• www.beatrixfarrandgarden.org Official Garden at Bellefield website
• Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington Connecticut Official website (Farrand-designed)
• http://www.gardenpreserve.org
• Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley Beatrix Jones Farrand Archives
• Environmental Design Library, University of California, Berkeley Beatrix Farrand: a Bibliography of Her Life & Work
• Princeton University biography
• American Studies @ University of Virginia "Beatrix Farrand 'Landscape Gardener'"
• Sargent House Museum Charles Sprague Sargent Annual Lecture
• Garden History Reef Point Gardens Bulletin
• New York Times profile, 1899
• Finding aid to the Beatrix Farrand Collection at the Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley
• The Mount, Edith Wharton's Home

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