On Plantation Row along the Ashley River west of Charleston are three magnificant properties, with Drayton Hall and Middleton Place flanking Magnolia Plantation. All three have stories to tell, featuring large in both local and US history. Drayton Hall was built in 1738 by John Drayton (c.1715–1779) — the great-grandson of Thomas Drayton Jr., who founded Magnolia Plantation in 1676. Although John […]
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. […]
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. […]