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In 1924, when The Colonial Dames of
America bought the “Teller
Mansion”
from the Standard Gas and Light Company to use as its headquarters, the
house was surrounded by gas storage tanks. There was no trace of the early
19th-century garden, orchard, or trotting course that guests
visiting the Mount Vernon Hotel between 1826 and 1833 enjoyed.
After removing the gas tanks, the CDA hired landscape
architect Mary Cattell to design an early 18th-century garden
behind the house, with espalier ivy trained on the fences. Cattell was
careful to include only plants and flowers that had been in use during that
period, with special plantings of spring flowering shrubs and bulbs favored
by English and Dutch settlers. When the garden was completed, it was
considered an important contribution to the cultural ambience of New York.
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Bench against Northern
Wall of Garden |
In
1974, having purchased an adjacent building, the CDA decided to reinterpret
the garden as a recreation of a mid-19th century garden and hired
Alice
Recknagel
Ireys, a renowned landscape architect who also designed
the Fragrance Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, to create the design.
Ireys chose plants that were popular during the Victorian era: boxwood,
roses, lilac, viburnum, and herbs. She also used many plants native to
North America such as ferns, ginger, cornelian cherry, and
shadblow. In 1995 Gina Ingoglia Weiner followed Ireys as advisor to the
Mount Vernon
Museum
Garden. She added
new paths to the garden’s design, as well as a gazebo in 2006, in honor of
Esther “Faity” Leeming Tuttle, who had chaired the CDA’s garden committee
for many years.
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Gazebo in Northeast
Corner of the Garden
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A walk through the garden today takes the visitor out of the bustle of the
city into a quiet, beautifully ordered oasis of shrubs, plants, and flowers.
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