First-time garden tour offered by The Mount and Naumkeag

Lenox & Stockbridge, Mass., (May 25, 2004) --

The Mount and Naumkeag, Gilded Age estates with two of the Berkshires’ most beautiful and historic gardens, are collaborating this summer to offer “The European Influence on Berkshire Estates,” an all-new garden tour available to groups of 15 or more.

Participants will see how European designs – with an American twist – influenced two very different gardens. The Mount’s gardens reflect the popularity of the Italianate and other classical, formal European styles in early 20th century America. Naumkeag’s mid-20th century gardens are abstract and idiosyncratic variations on European Beaux Arts styles.

The special tour begins with a look at the three acres of formal gardens surrounding The Mount, writer Edith Wharton’s estate in Lenox. Wharton was designing these gardens at the same time she was writing her influential 1904 garden and travel book, Italian Villas and Their Gardens. Her design draws on classic Italian and European design principles, especially the sense of architectural progression and use of terraced levels, and incorporates romantic features such as a sunken Italian walled garden and bosco.

Naumkeag, in Stockbridge, also was conceived along classical European design principles. But in the late 1920’s Mabel Choate, daughter of the original estate family, began a 30-year collaboration with landscape architect Fletcher Steele to transform the property to include more whimsical features. The Venetian poles and the tapestry of design in the Afternoon Garden, along with the Perugino View and other features, reflect the owner’s love of European gardens.

The tour will be led by Jacqueline Connell, an architectural designer and historian who has lectured widely throughout the Northeast on landscapes, historical architecture and interior design. She has served as the Garden Club of America’s liaison to the Archives of American Gardens at the Smithsonian.

This first-time tour is available to groups on weekdays and Sundays, June to September. Cost is $25 per person. The program begins at 10 a.m. at The Mount. After the morning tour, participants may schedule lunch at The Mount’s Terrace Café, or choose to have lunch on their own. The tour resumes at Naumkeag at 1:30 p.m. For more information, call Cory Hines of The Mount at (413) 637-1899 ext. 109.