Longfellow House in the Media Street Her Entire Life
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on fellow ous L g ulletinH e Volume No. A Newsletter of the Friends of the Longfellow House and the National Park Service June Garden Fundraising Campaign NearsB End: Rehab Well Underway fter a three-year capital campaign to formal garden, except for Araise funds to rehabilitate Alice Long- the flowering apricot. The fellow's garden, the Friends of the Longfel- Hutcheson gate is once low House have virtually achieved their again in line with the per- million-dollar goal. Most of the rehabilita- gola, and the lattice fence tion work is now complete or underway. has been returned to its Major improvements have occurred in historic location. The path- all sections of the grounds of Brattle ways have been widened to Street, including the welcoming forecourt their original dimension. in front of the House, Alice’s sitting gar- Yet another significant den, the East Lawn which has been the site change has taken place of many events, and the Colonial Revival alongside the formal gar- formal garden in the rear. den. In order to recreate Visitors to the newly renovated formal the natural screen between garden will notice the most dramatic the Longfellow property changes. Perhaps most striking, the miss- Looking through the pergola towards the carriage house, and the neighbors, a num- ing Colonial Revival pergola, designed by place of the spirit” and a “place of inspi- ber of pine and spruce trees had to be the landscape architect Martha Brookes ration and promise,” as Hutcheson wrote removed because, through lack of pruning, Hutcheson, has been reproduced and once in her book The Spirit of the Garden. they had grown too high and their roots again provides not only a focal point but Gardeners have planted all the replace- had invaded the garden. A newly planted also a private and shady spot, a “resting ment ornamental flowering fruit trees in the (continued on page ) Hutcheson’s Design Rehabilitated for Its Centennial Anniversary his year marks the centennial of the Timplementation of Martha Brookes Hutcheson’s design for the formal garden behind the Longfellow House with the installation of many of its original elements. Alice Longfellow, the poet’s oldest daughter who lived on in the House after her father’s death, hired landscape architect Martha Brookes Hutcheson (‒) to re-establish the formal garden that she had known since childhood. She engaged Hutcheson to base her plan on the Persian design of her father’s flower garden, drawn up in the s by English landscape gar- dener and florist Richard Dolben. Martha Brookes Hutcheson wrote in a Aerial view of the Longfellow House formal garden, letter in response to the Historic American originally planned, for sentiment, which to visitors as she grew older.” Building Survey in , “The Longfellow pleased Miss Alice Longfellow very much. A young landscape architect at the time, Garden at Cambridge I overhauled entirely. Then I added arbors, gates, fence, etc. mak- Martha Brookes Brown (later Hutcheson) It had gone to rack and ruin. I reset box in ing of it a garden which Miss Longfellow had attended both M.I.T and Harvard’s the Persian pattern which the poet had could go to, and, if she chose, close gates (continued on page ) ᳚ Garden Rehab Well Underway (continued from page ) ሖሗመ screen consists of pines, serviceberry trees, sional planting scheme. There are no extant holly trees and shrubs, and junipers. drawings or plans for the Hutcheson garden, Friends of the Longfellow House Numerous smaller plantings are now but there is considerable photo documenta- Board of Directors installed in the formal garden. Bordering tion offering much visual information. The Barclay Henderson, President the paths is a boxwood hedge, composed of Longfellow House collection, however, con- Robert Mitchell,Treasurer little-leaf Korean boxwoods. Many tains extensive archival documentation for Frances Ackerly Peter Ambler varieties of roses are in the ground along the Shipman garden rehabilitation, which Hans-Peter Biemann with Hungarian lilacs and bush honey- replaced the plantings yet respected and did Gene A. Blumenreich suckle. This spring and not reconfigure Hutche- Polly Bryson summer perennials son’s earlier garden design. Dick Dober will be added. Much care The Brattle Street fore- Fran Folsom has been taken in choosing court in front of the Diana der Hovanessian flowering plants “to repli- House also displays some Carol Johnson cate the original palette,” striking improvements. Sarah Jolliffe said Mona McKindley, an Besides planting replace- Linda Kime NPS gardener who has ment elms for the trees Layne Longfellow worked on this project. that had died and widen- Heather Moulton Laura Nash A small portion of the ing the front walkway and Lynne Spencer work on the formal gar- other paths, McKindley den remains. Next spring and the NPS team have Advisory Board and summer McKindley once again planted roses in Ruth Butler says they will plant many position to climb the LeRoy Cragwell annuals and bulbs and House facade’s white pi- Diana Korzenik what she calls the “fussy” lasters as they did histori- Richard Nylander perennials. In visi- Alice Longfellow with her nurse, s cally. They have also re- Stephen D. Pratt tors will finally see everything in place and placed the climbing vines on the portico. Marilyn Richardson Marc Shell all plants blooming. The Park Service chose to rehabilitate the Charles Sullivan The current formal garden rehabilitation formal garden to reflect work accomplished Lowell A. Warren Jr. is based on a combination of Martha during Alice Longfellow's occupancy of the Eileen Woodford Brookes Hutcheson’s design of the House from to .This decision pre- garden’s infrastructure (pergola, fences, box- serves the continuum of garden history, Administrator woods, etc.) and landscape architect Ellen including contributions made earlier by J.L. Bell Biddle Shipman’s plans twenty years later to Henry Longfellow, and captures the impor- Newsletter Committee resuscitate the garden’s aging plantings and tant efforts of the landscape architects who Glenna Lang, Editor, Writer & Designer redesign the beds with a more three-dimen- worked with the family over time. James M. Shea Fran Folsom Martha Brookes Hutcheson (continued from page ) Laura Nash ᇶᇷᇸ Bussey Institution, a school of agriculture was nevertheless so in keeping with the way National Park Service connected with the Arnold Arboretum. She things were done at the period that I felt it Myra Harrison, Superintendent had started a small practice in Boston in was interesting to reset the box borders in James M. Shea, Museum Manager , and during the next thirty years she the original flower bed pattern so long as Nancy Jones, Education and Visitor Services designed over fifty residential gardens in Longfellow, himself, had done it originally. Paul Blandford, Museum Educator Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, I felt that it was a way in which one of my Anita Israel, Archives Specialist New Jersey, and New York. In she was generation could pay him an homage. This David Daly, Collections Manager one of the first three women to become full pleased Miss Longfellow very much.” Lauren Malcolm, Museum Technician members of the American Society of Hutcheson’s critically and commercially C. Sue Rigney, Planning & Communications Landscape Architects. successful book The Spirit of the Garden was Liza Stearns, Education Specialist “I regret having to write you that there widely praised for its illuminating discussion Ed Bacigalupo, Chief of Maintenance Scott Fletcher, Facility Manager was no original plan of the Longfellow Gar- of the principles of garden design. It was den when I took it in hand,” Hutcheson one of the first books to encourage the use Printed by Newprint Offset, Waltham, Mass. continued in her letter. “I added all arbors, of native American plants and conservation gates, etc. but I based the flower beds on the of America’s “vast natural beauty.” The Spirit ghost of those which existed, as Miss of the Garden contains many photographic ማሜምሞ Longfellow told me that her father, the illustrations of European and American gar- All images are from the Longfellow National Historic poet, had laid out the original plan, taking dens, several of which were designed by Site collections, unless noted otherwise. the flower bed shapes from a Persian pat- Hutcheson—including photos of the for- tern. Though I thought it an ugly idea, it mal garden at the Longfellow House. ᳚ Interview with a Longfellow Descendant…Mary Hunting Smith Mary Hunting Smith is a great grand- for many, many years after that. MS: Uncle Harry Dana was the only daughter of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. LH: What did you do for them? person who was here. I may have stayed Her mother was Priscilla Thorp Smith, MS: I did everything. I started out as here when Aunt Alice was still alive, but I youngest daughter of Anne Longfellow secretary in the program department, and don’t remember her. I do remember Uncle Thorp whom the poet immortalized as when I finally left, I was assistant manager. Harry. He was in the back quarters some- “laughing Allegra” in his poem “The Chil- I worked my way up through all kinds of where with his big library and his papers. dren’s Hour.” As a young girl, Mary Smith other jobs in the orchestra. I was with them He sort of terrified me actually. I don’t was often pictured in photographs taken in almost twenty years. And then I moved to think he was very fond of children. He did- the garden (see photos on pages and ). New York and worked for a music pub- n’t know what to say to me, and I certainly She shared her reminiscences and walked in lisher and for the New York Philharmonic didn’t know what to say to him.