Foll- The e-Bulletin of The Folly Fellowship The Folly Fellowship is a Registered Charity No. 1002646 and a Company Limited by Guarantee No. 2600672 Issue 40: The Gazebos of July 2011 Events calendar: New England - II 29 July—A visit to Tabley House at Knutsford and Eaton Hall in Cheshire. Details from [email protected] 20 August—Annual Summer Garden Party at Hope Valley, with additional visits to Dolfor grotto and Leighton Hall Poul- try House, Shropshire. Details from [email protected] 24 September—Herefordshire Ramble, with visits to Cadmore Millennium Tower, Westonbury Wikipedia Biruitorol, Water Gardens and Hampton Photo: Court. Details from pfgod- [email protected] 16 October—‘Burt’s Bits:’ A tour of George Burt’s follies at Swanage, Dorset. Details from [email protected] Heritage Open Days: 8-11 September—England Details from www.heritageopen days.org.uk Larz Anderson Pavilion, Brookline, Massachusetts. Massachusetts. Brookline, Pavilion, Anderson Larz All weekends in September— Wales Details from www.civictrustwales.org arz Anderson Park in to arrive in Boston, and was possi- L Brookline, Massachusetts bly descended from William Weld, All weekends in September— was created by the socialite heir- the Sheriff of London in 1352. Scotland Details from ess Isabel Weld Perkins and her When the Andersons bought www.doorsopendays.org.uk Paris-born diplomat husband, after the estate it was centred on a twenty-five-room mansion, which 10-11 September—Northern whom the Park is named. It covers Ireland Details from an area of 26ha (64 acres) and they remodelled on Lulworth Cas- www.doeni.gov.uk was laid out soon after the couple tle (Dorset) in the belief that Isabel acquired the land in 1899. was related to the Weld family Isabel was a member of the who owned it. They then used the philanthropic Weld family who had house as their summer residence, The Folly Fellowship farmed this area of New England and the place where they spent Articles, pictures, comments and feed- since their arrival there in the 17th their Christmas holidays. back for the e-Bulletin should be sent century. She was a direct descen- The landscape was created by to [email protected]. All other dant of Edmund Weld (1559-1608) Charles A. Platt, who was better correspondence should be sent to [email protected]. of Sudbury (Suffolk), whose three known as an architect than he was sons were among the first settlers a landscape designer. He proba- The gazebo at Forest Hall Photo: Daderot on Wikipedia of steps (above). Larz Anderson Park, Brookline, MA The town of Belfast (Maine) sits Above: The Water Garden and Temple at the mouth of the Passagassa- Photo: Lorianne DiSabato on Flickr wakeag river, and is home to an Left: The Japanese Garden fascinating group of mansions built Photo: Library of Congress, Washington in the Federal, Greek Revival and Town of Brookline. By then Italianate styles, all of which are the mansion had fallen into best seen by joining one of the decay and was demolished in Belfast Historical Society’s walking 1955 for safety reasons. Only tours. One of them is James Pat- the Carriage House and the terson White’s house at 19 Church Temple of Love remain, and Street, designed in the 1840s by bly added the vast Carriage House now form part of the grounds to the architect Calvin Ryder in the and the Classical ‘Temple of Love’ Brookline High School. Greek Revival style. At some time beside the lake, and may have Just as tall as the cast iron ga- around 1850 a colourful Gothick had a hand in the design of the zebo, and equally curious was the Revival gazebo was built in the vast cast iron gazebo with its four three-storey gazebo-cum-observa- gardens with a green-painted roof radiating pergolas (see below). It is tory at Joseph Potter’s estate at that resembles an over-sized som- unlikely that he had a hand in the Framingham (Mass). Potter was a brero (next page—top left). design of the Chinese or Japa- wealthy businessman who seems nese gardens, both of which ap- to have enjoyed himself at home, peared after Larz had been ap- building himself a garden that was pointed as America’s Ambassador said to resemble an amusement to Japan. park bursting with garden struc- When Isabel Anderson died tures. None of them survive today. in 1948, the estate was left to the Forest Hall (also known as the Barrett House) in New Ipswich (Mass) is an impressive mansion in the Federal (classical) style. It was built in 1800 as a wedding present for Charles Barrett and his bride by his wealthy father, who seems to have invested in most of the local business ventures of the time. It was left to Charles and his bride to plant the gardens, includ- ing an impressive alleé of Maples that lead to a gazebo atop a flight Left: The cast iron gazebo at Larz Anderson Park c.1900. Right: The Observatory Tower at Framingham, c.1880 Photos: Library of Congress, Washington 2 The summerhouses at 91 High Street (above centre), 98 High Street (above right) in Newburyport (Mass), and the summerhouse (below right) at 117 Cabot Street in Beverly (Mass). Photos: Library of Congress, Washington By the end of the 19th century Olmstead saw as serving part pri- new ideas were emerging about vate and part public interests. In landscape design, led mainly by the end his scheme was based on an Arcadian ideal promoted by his idea of an ‘English country re- Frederick Law Olmstead (1822- treat’ (Frederick Law Olmstead.com). 1903). He is considered by many An example of this European to be the father of American land- influence can be seen at The Elms scape design, but most academics in Newport, Rhode Island, where attribute the title to Andrew Jack- the architect Horace Trumbauer son Downing (1815-52). Nonethe- designed a ‘summer cottage’ for less, Olmstead (with Calvert Vaux) the coal baron Edward Berwind. is well-known for designing many Built between 1899 and 1901, the of the better-known urban parks in limestone mansion is a copy of the North America, including Central Château d’Asnières-sur-Seine in Park and Prospect Park in New the north-west suburbs of Paris. York. The gardens were laid out by C It was Olmstead who added the H Miller and E W Bowditch, work- gazebo-cum-teahouse at Moraine ing closely with Trumbauer. To- Farm (719 Cabot Street, Beverley, gether they created a sunken gar- Mass) in the 1880s, which he set den flanked by two teahouses in the family changed from carriages above a rustic stone arch known the French classical style (see be- to automobiles, the head coach- as ‘the grotto’. It was all part of his low). They also added a large sta- man retrained as the chauffeur but improvement of the 275-acre park bles and carriage house that was is said to have never mastered the belonging to John Phillips, which later converted to a garage. When art of reversing. Taking pity on him, the family later installed a turntable before demolishing the building in favour of a purpose- built garage measuring 38 x 21 metres, and said to be the largest private garage in America. Bar Harbor occupies the north- eastern corner of Mount Desert Island of the coast of Maine. In 1947 many of its historic proper- ties were destroyed in a fire that began on 17 October and lasted for twenty-eight days. One of the survivors was a timber-framed and domed gazebo that once formed part of the grounds of R H Robert- son’s mansion. The gazebo is now believed to have been lost. 3 The Wedding Cake House at Kennebunk n 1825, the Maine shipbuilder I George Washington Bourne (1801-56) bought the Federal style mansion at 104 Summer Street in Kennebunk as a home for him and his new bride. Some time later he added a timber barn and carriage house. In 1852 a fire engulfed the carriage house requiring its demo- lition before the flames spread to Bourne’s house. A little while after the fire, hav- ing rebuilt the fire-damaged car- riage house, Bourne embarked on a tour of European cities, stopping off in the Italian city of Milan. There he is said to have been struck by the Gothic splendour of the Duomo di Milano, so-much-so that when he returned to America he quickly summoned his appren- The Norumbega Tower tice ship’s carpenter (Thomas Dur- rell) and set about remodelling his house in honour of the great ca- rof. Eben Norton Horsford thedral. was an amateur archaeolo- P Adding timber buttresses, ogee gist who believed that in 1000 AD arches, sprocketed, pinnacles and the Viking Leif Erikson rowed his longboat up the Charles River and fretwork, caused many locals to claimed North America for the name the style ‘Carpenter Gothic’, Norwegians. He was convinced with the house eventually acquir- that Erikson settled at Cambridge ing the nickname of The Wedding (Mass) and built a house on the Cake House. After he retired from banks of the river. To prove his shipbuilding, Bourne continued to point he excavated where he be- work on the house, adding more lieved the house to have been and and more until he died. unsurprisingly discovered a few By 1983 the house was lived in buried artefacts there. by the last of Bourne’s descen- In 1889 he built a thin stone dents and was in a poor state of tower close to the mouth of the repair.