The walled garden of Chalet Magazin, Ax-les-Thermes, France,” July 1906, by Eugène Trutat, via Bibliothèque de Toulouse Commons on flickr.
From over the wall I could hear the laughter of women
in a foreign tongue, in the sun-rinsed air of the city. . . .
. . . the sound filled up the garden and lifted
like bubbles spilling over the bricks that enclosed them. . .
— Mary-Sherman Willis, from “The Laughter of Women“
The Lodge on Mount Toxaway, Sapphire, North Carolina, ca. 1902, by William Henry Jackson, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (all photos here).
The Lodge was part of the Toxaway System of Hotels, created by a group of Pittsburgh entrepreneurs who began to built resorts in the Sapphire area in the 1890s.
By 1903, they had dammed the Toxaway River — creating the 640-acre artificial Lake Toxaway — and constructed the luxurious 500-guest Toxaway Inn. After 1904, when the Southern Railroad opened a depot on the lake, the area was known as “Switzerland of America.”
The Lodge was presented in a 1905 company brochure as a “nature kindergarten” for “children of the city” to learn about trees, flowers, and birds. Farm animals and poultry were also available for study.
At an altitude of over 4,500 ft., the views from the wrap-around porch and the lookout tower were particularly good. Guests from the other Toxaway hotels would spend the night in the house to see the sunrise or sunset over the mountains.
It was also used as a hunting retreat for wealthy industrialists.
The Lodge no longer exists — although it was still there in 1920, four years after severe flooding caused the company’s dam to burst. (Some homes were destroyed, but only a mule perished.)
Lake Toxaway disappeared, and the Toxaway Inn emptied out as well. It never re-opened after 1916 and was demolished in 1947.
In the early 1960s, another group of investors rebuilt the dam. The lake re-filled, and a golf club and hotel were opened. The property around what was once The Lodge is now Preserve at Rock Creek, an “exclusive” real estate development.
To scroll through larger version of the photos, click on ‘Continue reading’ below and then on any thumbnail in the gallery.
My mind was once the true survey
Of all these meadows fresh and gay,
And in the greenness of the grass
Did see its hopes as in a glass. . .— Andrew Marvell, from “The Mower’s Song“
Two women in a pavilion overlooking irises in Japan, between 1860 and 1910.
This hand-colored photograph comes from the National Museum of Denmark Commons on flickr — part of a collection that belonged to journalist Holger Rosenberg.
Unfortunately, the museum does not have any additional information about it.
In Heian Period [794 -1185] Japanese gardens, built in the Chinese model, buildings occupied as much or more space than the garden. The garden was designed to be seen from the main building and its verandas, or from small pavilions built for that purpose. In later gardens, the buildings were less visible. Rustic teahouses were hidden in their own little gardens, and small benches and open pavilions along the garden paths provided places for rest and contemplation. In later garden architecture, walls of houses and teahouses could be opened to provide carefully framed views of the garden. The garden and the house became one.
— “Japanese garden,” Wikipedia
Click here to see all the Museum’s online photos of Japanese landscapes (and some wonderful kimonos).
There’s also a 1913 Japanese iris garden in East Hampton, N.Y., here.
To scroll through larger versions of these images, click on ‘Continue reading’ below and then on any thumbnail in the gallery.
“Country flower fair, May 19 and 20, 1918, at the Bordeaux Town Hall. To benefit the war charities and children’s charities.” Poster art by A. Guindet, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
San Giorgio cloister, Verona, Italy, May 19, 1878, via National Archives of Estonia Commons on flickr.
The watercolor is one of many Italian scenes collected (perhaps painted?) by a Baroness Meyendorff in the 1870s and early 1880s.
enclos*ure 