Category: North American gardens

Vintage landscape: Lafayette Square

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Lafayette Square, Washington, DC, via DCPL Commons on flickr “The Belasco Theatre as seen from Lafayette Square, ca 1910,”  via the D.C. Public Library Commons on flickr.  The photographer is not noted.

The Washington, D.C., theater was called the Lafayette Square Opera House when it was built in 1895.  It was renamed the Belasco in 1905.  In 1962, it was demolished to make way for the U.S. Court of Claims building.

Come see the north wind’s masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile. . .
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind’s night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, from “The Snow-Storm“

 

Vintage landscape: the capitol and the conservatory

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Botanical garden at the CapitalThe U.S. Botanic Garden, 1917, by Harris & Ewing, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The conservatory will be decorated for the holidays through January 5.

I wish you a very happy 2014.

“. . . Botanic Goddess! bend thy radiant eyes;
O’er these soft scenes assume thy gentle reign,
Pomona, Ceres, Flora in thy train;
O’er the still dawn thy placid smile effuse,
And with thy silver sandals print the dews;
In noon’s bright blaze thy vermil vest unfold,
And wave thy emerald banner starr’d with gold.”

Thus spoke the Genius, as he stepp’d along,
And bade these lawns to Peace and Truth belong;
Down the steep slopes he led with modest skill;
The willing pathway, and the truant rill,
Stretch’d o’er the marshy vale yon willowy mound,
Where shines the lake amid the tufted ground,
Raised the young woodland, smooth’d the wavy green,
And gave to Beauty all the quiet scene.—

— Erasmus Darwin, from  “The Botanic Garden”

Vintage landscape: the sunken garden

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Vintage landscape/enclos*ure: sunken garden, Hammersmith Farm, 1917, by F.B. Johnston, via Library of Congress. . . at Hammersmith Farm, Newport, Rhode Island, 1917, by Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Vintage landscape/enclos*ure: sunken garden, Hammersmith Farm, 1917, by F.B. Johnston, via Library of CongressThe pergola overlooking the sunken garden. The hand-colored lantern slide is also by Johnston from 1917.

The house, originally on 75 acres, was built for the great-grandfather of Jackie Kennedy’s stepfather.  She lived there during her childhood, and her wedding reception was held there.

The garden at the time of the photo had been designed about 7 years before by James Frederick Dawson and Henry Hill Blossom of Olmsted Brothers. Today, the house still stands, but the garden is not the same, according to the Library’s online catalogue.

Vintage landscape: land of flowers

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The Land of Flowers, by Burgert Brothers, ca. 1920, via Library of Congress“Land of Flowers,” open-air dance, c. 1920, by Burgert Brothers, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Impressive.

All the images below are details from the same picture.

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The Burgert Brothers — Al and Jean — owned the leading photography studio in Tampa, Fla., from 1918 until the early 1960s.

I couldn’t find anything more about this particular photograph, but I did find a similar image taken by the Burgerts.

The other picture, taken in 1923, shows the dance students of Mme. Lee Scovell as they performed a scene from the ballet “Land of Flowers” at the Temple Terrace Country Club.  The photo above could be from the same performance, or it could be of an earlier class of Mme. Scovell’s.

We, the Fairies, blithe and antic,
Of dimensions not gigantic,
Though the moonshine mostly keep us,
Oft in orchards frisk and peep us.

— Leigh Hunt, from “Song of Fairies Robbing an Orchard“

Vintage landscape: Como Park

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6 Como Park, St. Paul, MNAh, bedding out. . . .  This is Como Park in St. Paul, Minnesota, ca. 1905.  Photo by Detroit Publishing Co. via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.