Exploring Dumbarton Oaks Gardens

In the early 1920s, philanthropist Mildred Bliss and landscape designer Beatrix Farrand began to create an extensive garden at the Bliss’ Washington DC estate. Collaborating for almost thirty years, the two planned every garden detail, each terrace, bench, urn, and border. Now open to the pubic, the garden is perhaps the last remaining landscape in North America that hews closely to the original Farrand design. In 2014 it was singled out by National Geographic as one of the ten best gardens in the world. […]

Discovering Sarah P. Duke Gardens

I wonder how you score a Duke University dorm room overlooking the Sarah P. Duke Gardens. This is the view the lucky students who reside in those rooms see below their windows — and what we saw up-close on a recent visit. Sarah P. Duke Gardens consists of 55 acres of landscaped and wooded areas […]

Reynolda House Museum of American Art

I’ve been wanting to visit Reynolda House and its American art collection since I first learned about it 25 years ago. Finally made it! Set at the center of 180 acres in Winston-Salem NC, the Reynolda House Museum of American Art presents an acclaimed art collection in an historic and incomparable setting: the original 1917 […]

Morgan Library Gets a Facelift … and a Garden

Commissioned in 1902 by financier John Pierpont Morgan as his private library, the Morgan Library building was completed in 1906 and is considered one of McKim, Mead & White’s finest works, perfectly embodying the Renaissance ideal of the unity of the arts through the integration of architecture, sculpture, and painting with exceptional craftsmanship and materials. […]

Atlanta Botanical Garden

Every major city has big patches of green to relieve the hard edges of urban life. Atlanta is no exception. Smack dab in the middle of the city, about 1 mile northeast of Downtown, sitting on the edge of Midtown is Piedmont Park – noted among the city’s numerous parks as the home of the […]

Cutting Corners with Patrick Dougherty

For 30 years Patrick Dougherty’s enchanting Stickwork sculptures have been sprouting up at museums, botanical gardens, and public spaces around the world. Amazing what you can do with 30,000 pounds of willow! Until recently I’d never seen one, but whenever I’ve read about a Dougherty Stickwork I’ve been tantalized. So it was a delight to […]