Wethersfield Estate
Awarded for Excellence
Wethersfield Estate and Garden, an expansive historic landscape created by Chauncey Devereux Stillman (1907–1989), is the inaugural recipient of the Jean and John Greene Prize for Excellence in the Field of American Gardening.
The announcement was made by the Garden Conservancy. The prize was made possible by a transformational estate gift of nearly $3 million to the Garden Conservancy from John Kaul Greene who died in September 2019. Before his death he expressed his intention to create an award to recognize excellence in American gardening. He is survived by his wife, Jean, who shared his appreciation for the ways gardens enrich lives.
Wethersfield will receive $30,000 which, according to Toshi Yano, director of horticulture at the garden, will be used for a cultural landscape report. “It will be a historic masterplan of the garden that will guide us in managing the garden into the future,” he explained. He said that report will not bind managers of the property to a slavish recreation of its original design but rather will enable them to “keep the historic spirit of the property.”
The report will be created by Heritage Landscapes of Norwalk, representatives of which visited the property last week. “We just did a formal field study last week,” Yano reported. “We had blueprints for the garden drawn up recently and have a huge archive of old drawings so (Heritage Landscape representatives) can determine how it has changed. They will talk with Wethersfield employees and the board to get their feedback.”
Wethersfield has earned a reputation as the finest classical garden in the United States built in the second half of the 20th century. The gardens emanate from the red brick Georgian Revival-style home situated at the highest point on the property.
In 1940 Chauncey Stillman collaborated with landscape architect Bryan J. Lynch to install 19th-century English-style gardens on the north side of the house. As extensions of the house, garden rooms are visible through the windows as they flow out to green corridors that lead to smaller enclosures adorned with arches, fountains and sculptures.
When Stillman died in 1989, the Wethersfield Foundation was charged with carrying out his intentions to promote responsible land stewardship, habitat protection, sustainable farming and innovative horticulture as well as to share the beauty of the property and classical arts with the local community.
“We opened to the public in 1990, so we’ve been at it for a while,” Yano said. “For a long time, we just sort of maintained what was here. In some ways that’s the perfect way to approach a historic property but we have historic trees and plantings that will grow old and die so the Garden Conservancy saw the benefit of a cultural landscape report.
“With future climate patterns, the plants we have may not be able to survive and we will have to consider replacements. It’s a formal garden so we have a lot of hedges—what is the best practices for maintaining them? Should they be cut back to their original scale? Do we just edit plants? Do we plant new species or just replace the old plants? Can we expand? If we do, how do we do that? Do we keep the original style of the garden or can we do new things?
“Without proper guidance, it’s easy to let things go,” he continued. “Heritage Landscapes has done hundreds of these reports and can help us decide what to do as we face the future with climate change. A cultural landscape report can take us into the future. A landscape architect will collaborate with us on the best way forward, and he can offer practical suggestions—maybe suggest a replacement. It helps us and the executive leadership understand what we have now and how practitioners believe we should proceed.”
“Those of us who care deeply about the future of gardens know that garden preservation requires a plan,” says Garden Conservancy President and CEO James Brayton Hall. “Careful study and documentation of a garden’s history is a first step towards ensuring its future.”
Yano noted that Wethersfield was placed on the National Register of Historic Place in 2021 and also won an award from New York State for Excellence in Historic Landscape Preservation. “We are learning the value of gardens here, locally and nationally. We want to make sure that in the future we are using best practices to manage such historic landscapes. This is what the government recommends and it is becoming standard practice in public and private gardens across the country.”
He lauded James Brayton Hall for his help in getting the grant.
The Garden Conservancy, Inc. is a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to preserve, share and celebrate America’s gardens and diverse gardening traditions for the inspiration and education of the public. In partnership with garden owners, gardeners, communities, horticulturists, garden designers and historians, the Garden Conservancy works to preserve outstanding gardens across America.
Wethersfield opens for the season on June 4th.
