COE HALL Board of Trustees WE WARMLY WELCOME Officers Michael D
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PLANTING FIELDS FOUNDATION/PLANTING FIELDS ARBORETUM, OYSTER BAY, NY WINTER/SPRING 2018 NEWSLETTER The original 1906 mansion aT PlanTing Fields was desTroyed by Fire in march 1918 and was rePlaced by COE HALL Board oF TrusTees WE WARMLY WELCOME officers michael d. coe TWO NEW TRUSTEES Chairman lisa c. scully hal davidson Lisa C. Scully is the owner of the Locust Valley President Bookstore and is a graduate from St. George’s Peter Tiberio School, Newport, Rhode Island and Wheaton Treasurer College, Norton Massachusetts. She is a trustee of St. George’s School and in 2006 she was the John casaly recipient of the Howard B. Dean Award for Secretary volunteer service. Lisa’s professional experience includes working with Institutional Investor Magazine, International Media Partners, and Trustees Fortune Magazine. She was the editor of the local hannah burns community newspaper based in Locust Valley, carol m. canter The Leader, where she is currently a contributing mary ciullo writer. Lisa is married to David B. Scully, and robert Foschi when they are not catering to the needs of their margaret Frere six children, they enjoy spending time in Maine Thomas J. golon and the Adirondacks. constance haydock david r. holmes, Jr. roberT b. macKay, Phd mary macdonald Robert B. MacKay, PhD, is an author, historian, robert macKay and former director of the Society for the Jeffrey lee moore Preservation of Long Island Antiquities, now andrew F. nevin known as Preservation Long Island. Robert is a graduate of Boston University where he received lisa c. scully his Doctorate in American and New England stephen h. watters studies. In 2009, Robert was selected by The Julia weidinger Preservation League of New York State to receive a Jennifer a. wiggins Preservation award for individual Excellence in Historic Preservation, honoring his outstanding ex officio achievements that have helped to preserve Long henry b. Joyce Island’s cultural heritage. He is the author of Executive Director, several books including Long Island Country Houses Planting Fields Foundation and Their Architects, 1860-1940, Great Yachts of Long Island’s North Shore, Gardens of Eden: Long Island’s Early Twentieth-Century Planned Communities. Robert Vincent a. simeone is a resident of Cold Spring Harbor, New York. Director, Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park (Cover) 1910 photograph of the Byrne Mansion, Planting Fields Foundation archive collection. (Opposite) Cymbidium orchid in the Main Greenhouse. 2 FEATURED STORIES 6 COE HOME BURNED The 1906 house was designed by New York City architect Grosvenor Atterbury (1869- 1956) who, after Yale trained as an architect at Columbia University and in Paris. 10 SAMUEL YELLIN It is the ironwork at Coe Hall which is such a fine testament to Yellin's commitment to the very best traditions ed FooTe of blacksmithing. 3 Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney with her bronze sculpture, Buffalo Bill – The Scout, about 1923, before it was shipped to Cody, WY. 4 message From The execuTiVe direcTor DEAR MEMBERS AND FRIENDS I hope you have enjoyed visiting us over the last year, whether to experience the gardens and Coe Hall, or attend one of our concerts or lectures, or all of the above! Last year, for the first time we celebrated Halloween at Coe Hall with both day-time and evening events. At night the rooms of Coe Hall appeared romantic and mysterious with eerie music throughout, and volunteer actors dressed in ghostly costumes. On the ground floor were special displays of Venitas and Momento Mori images from the past. In June we will open the exhibition “Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney: Sculpture”. The artist is best known as the founder of New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art, yet she had a significant career as a sculptor, exhibiting throughout the United States and Europe, receiving major commissions and prizes. We will feature over thirty sculptures and drawings. This is the first exhibition of Whitney’s art since her death in 1942. William R. Coe knew Mrs. Whitney and was involved in the commission of the larger than life equestrian sculpture of Buffalo Bill in Cody, Wyoming. With best wishes, Henry B. Joyce Executive Director, Planting Fields Foundation 5 (Above) Planting Fields Foundation archive Collection, New York Times article, 1918. (Opposite top) 1906 House at Planting Fields from circular pool looking north. (Opposite bottom) Coe Hall in 2018 from circular pool looking north. 6 7 PLANTING FIELDS’ 1906 MANSION burned down in 1918 by henry b. Joyce The house was designed by New York City architect Grosvenor Atterbury (1869-1956) who, after Yale trained as an architect at Columbia University and in Paris. Before setting up his own firm in 1895, he worked for McKim, Mead & White. Atterbury’s father, Charles, a lawyer, owned a summer house near Southampton, and so as a youngster, Grosvenor knew Long Island where, as an architect, he built much of his country house work. Atterbury designed the Planting Fields house in 1906 for corporate lawyer, James Byrne, and his wife, Helen. The house was rented by Mr. and Mrs. Coe starting in 1910, and then purchased by them in 1913. The mansion was one of Atterbury’s largest and most picturesque designs. His country house work stems from both the Shingle and Arts and Crafts Styles with an element of Beaux-Arts planning. At Planting Fields the deep overhanging roof lines, over-baked ‘lammie’ brick and half-timbering recall old English vernacular buildings, but are used by Atterbury in the creation of a singularly American architectural expression. A friend (Above) Grosvenor atterbury (Opposite top) Living room in 1906 house looking south. of Atterbury’s, architect Aymar Embury II, noted that (Opposite bottom) Living room in 1906 house looking east Planting Fields was “so wonderfully charming in every towards entrance. way that no single viewpoint serves to bring out all of its delightful features”. 8 9 10 SAMUEL YELLIN meTalworK aT coe hall by henry b. Joyce Arts and Crafts Movement metalwork, door handles, locks, railing, and fire screens The 1920 mansion at Planting Fields is often characterized as an expression of the Beaux-Arts style, which to a large extent it is; with its historicizing references, its axial plan centered on the front door and its lavish scale. But the house also owes a significant debt to the Arts and Crafts Movement with its passion for traditional hand-made elements of decoration including the finely carved stone sculpture on the exterior and extensive carved wood designs in several rooms. Another less obvious feature of the Arts and Crafts Movement at Coe Hall is the prevalence of fine metalwork, door handles, locks, railing, and fire screens, many of which were made by the Yellin Metalworker Studio in Philadelphia. The studio’s founder was the extraordinarily talented Samuel Yellin (1884-1940). He was a Jewish immigrant from Poland, much of which in the late nineteenth century was part of the Russian Empire. Yellin’s father was a lawyer, and as a boy, Samuel attended an arts and crafts school where his drawing ability flourished, and aged eleven he was apprenticed to a Russian blacksmith. By the age of 17, he was a master smith. (Above) Yellin at his arch street studio anvil around 1925, the year he received the Philadelphia Civic award. (Opposite) Wrought iron detail by the main staircase by the Yellin Metalworker studio. 11 12 In art circles in Russia, there was tremendous interest in the English Arts and Crafts Movement and innt William Morris’s passion for traditional craft techniques and designs. The Movement spread to Russia where many artists became focused on reviving ancient Russian inspired styles of design. These two trends in art and design had a profound and enduring influence on Yellin’s work in metal. Prior to coming to America in 1906, age twenty-two, Yellin traveled widely in Europe and in England to see art and architecture so that when he arrived here, he was already a highly skilled metalworker with a sophisticated knowledge of old and new art and design. Once in Philadelphia, where his mother and sisters were already living, Yellin found a job teaching studio classes in wrought iron at the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art. It was there that both his English language skills and his design skills developed and he became part of a community of artists and craftsmen. He also met architects who would later give him commissions for work. By 1909 he had set up his first forge, but at the time there was limited demand for high-quality decorative wrought iron, and what there was, generally came from England where there had been a flourishing tradition in fancy wrought iron production for over two hundred years. Examples are the (Top) samuel Yellin (right) at the anvil. (Bottom) detail from a fire screen at English-made Carshalton Gates Coe Hall. from about 1710, which are now at (Opposite) The Yellin firm’s fireplace Planting Fields. bench and fire screen in the Gallery. 13 From the beginning of his business career, Yellin established the importance of creating exact and elaborate drawings for the designs of his company’s forged work. In a photograph of Yellin and some staff in his studio (at left)—they are surrounded by drawings, plaster casts, and photographs. The image is a reminder that the Yellin firm’s production is rooted in the tradition of using sources from the past as ideas for his contemporary work. His firm’s drawings would also be used to show off his capabilities to potential clients, especially to architects who might incorporate his work into their projects. A photo of Yellin from several years later shows him in his studio surrounded by his newly made artifacts and Windsor chairs which are emblematic of the Arts and Crafts Movement.