Revisiting Romantic River Landscapes
by Neil Soderstrom

Review of Landscape Gardens on the Hudson: A History; The Romantic Age, the Great Estates, and the Birth of American Landscape Architecture by Robert M. Toole. Black Dome Press, oversize softcover, 183 pages, 150 photos & illustrations, $24.95.

This lavishly illustrated, large-format history focuses mainly on a dozen estate landscapes created along the Hudson in the 1800s. Today only a handful are open to the public. Author Robert Toole also discusses estates that have been lost to development or neglect.

Hailed by landscape design authorities as a “marvel,” a “feat of garden archeology, bringing to light the many-layered landscapes of these historic Hudson River places,” this book is rich in scholarly detail, while also pleasant reading for people mainly interested in visiting properties open to the public. Yet the author laments that restoration budgets have almost always been devoted mainly to historic buildings, at the expense of the original landscape designs.

The book’s 150 often full-color illustrations ably convey the author’s teaching points and include regional maps, paintings, line drawings, bird’s-eye landscape drawings, and documentary photos. In addition to preparing us for visits, the author helps us understand competing landscape design theories during the 1800s, as well as appreciate naturalistic design along the Hudson during what’s known as the Romantic Period in landscape painting and landscape architecture.

In the process we also discover the design achievements of luminaries from other fields, including telegraph-inventor Samuel Morse, author Washington Irving, Hudson River School painter Frederic Chase, and landscape kibitzer Franklin Delano Roosevelt. There are even extended excerpts from Edgar Allan Poe’s evocative fictional landscape in “Landor’s Cottage.”

Aside from Washington Irving, who designed his Sunnyside early in the 1800s, designs were often conceived or at least influenced by designer A.J. Downing, who rejected traditional European models with formal geometric patterns, topiary shrubs, and statuary. Instead Downing advocated the more recent European model of “consulting the genius of place,” preserving and enhancing the native landscape, in this case also the spectacular views of the Hudson. This also meant preserving stately trees, some of them still standing today, more than a century and half after the Hudson River steamboat explosion in 1852 that tragically took Downing’s life at age 36.

Places To Visit
In an appendix, Toole provides brief descriptions of sites he considers worth visiting, here listed north to south.

Olana, Rt 9G: Toole considers Olana “one of the most expansive and best-preserved of all the Hudson Valley’s landscape garden compositions.” The landscape and its extraordinary, polychromatic mansion were designed by owner and Hudson River School painter Frederic Church (1826–1900) “who approached landscape design… in a way parallel to his painterly art….The extensive acreage is reached by over five miles of carriage drives, carefully designed by Church, that offer many opportunities for scenic pedestrian touring.” Grounds open year round.

Clermont: Though owned by NY State, the grounds—with open lawns, picnic tables, and grills—“only vaguely reflect the historic situation,” says Toole. Grounds are free year-round unless you drive in during a special event or weekends between 11am and 4pm.

Montgomery Place, Annandale: The author characterizes this 380-acre estate as a romantic property with gracious house surroundings and spectacular Hudson Valley views. The house and property were recently re-opened to the public after being closed for several years; its future depends largely on the ability of its new executive director to garner strong community support.

Hyde Park (Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site), Rt. 9: Lamenting that the “historic landscape features and plantings are mostly gone,” Toole extols the spectacular river views and the house siting. Although “lovingly maintained,” he says, the walled gardens resemble their 1930s appearance. Grounds open 7 days without fee.

Locust Grove (Samuel Morse Historic Site) Rt. 9, Poughkeepsie: Before inventing the telegraph, Morse was one of America’s important portrait and landscape artists, also writing and lecturing on landscape design. Morse “favored landscape gardens that revealed what he called nature’s ‘original character’ over any artificial intrusion, championing the Picturesque as understood by A.J. Downing,” says Toole.

Fortunately for Morse in 1837, at age 46, he was rejected for a commission to paint a historical subject in DC’s Capitol rotunda. Disappointed, he devoted himself to his own concepts for what became the forerunner of electronic messaging. Patents allowed Morse to buy this property on the Hudson and focus his artist’s eye on landscaping. Although the museum property is well maintained, says Toole, the grounds themselves reflect an odd mixture of design features from different periods. And Morse’s beloved riverfront is “much overgrown.” Open daily April to December.

Sunnyside (Washington Irving’s home) Rt. 9 & W. Sunnyside Lane, Tarrytown: I relished my own long-ago visit, which powerfully evoked Irving’s presence and brought his milieu to life. Generally considered America’s first major literary author, Irving also designed the charming stepped-gable house and the surrounding landscape, on which he wrote, “[I] was pretty much my own architect; projector [planner] and landscape gardener, and had but rough hands to work under me.”

Toole suggests that Irving felt that “landscape gardening was best directed to idealize nature by producing an enhanced, but still natural, appearance….a tangible example of the ‘democratic’ homes and landscapes that would have special relevance for the future.” Toole praises Sunnyside’s “appeal of domestic modesty and coziness of setting, especially for owners of moderate means but high sensibilities…”

“This well-restored and sophisticated museum property includes the grounds in the ticket price. Close to the cottage, the landscape nearly replicates its historic conditions, and this area evokes an authentic feel for Irving’s sensibilities,” according to Toole, who laments that the kitchen garden became a parking lot. Open April–October except Tuesdays.

Neil Soderstrom is the author of Deer-Resistant Landscaping, confident that Washington Irving and Samuel Morse would have owned copies had publication come earlier.