About Connections: Love it or hate it, history is a map. Those who hate history think it irrelevant; many who love history think it escapism. In truth, history is the clearest road map to how we got here: America in the 21st century.
At Naumkeag in Stockbridge, the restoration of the Chinese Temple Garden is complete. It is the last piece in the three-year, $3 million restoration of the gardens created by Berkshire cottager Mabel Choate and landscape architect Fletcher Steele. Completion will be celebrated at an afternoon garden party at Naumkeag on Saturday, July 23.
The Chinese Temple Garden has meant many things to many people. To the architect the Chinese Garden was “the nucleus” – the central and most important part. To the owner it was a display area – an outdoor sculpture museum. To one pair it was that magic and most important place; the place they were married. To some teens of Stockbridge, it was a secret meeting place.
It was 1950. The enduring relationship between Choate and Steele was in full swing.
Reflecting upon their accomplishments to date, Choate wrote Steele, “So, in my mind, Naumkeag is now a work of art. Thanks to you. I am more interested in it and excited about it all the time, for you know, I have always wanted to make it a complete whole, like a picture in a frame.”
In 1955 as work on the Chinese Temple Garden and the curved brick and stone wall surrounding it neared completion, Steele wrote Choate: “When the south side of that wall is completed, the secret of the whole valley and surrounding hills as seen from this place will be clarified and reduced to one continuous curve. All of Naumkeag and the landscape beyond will be like the unfolding of a seashell whose nucleus is the Chinese Garden itself.”
Events, some sanctioned and definitely not sanctioned, took place in the Temple Garden.
Mark and Bonita Wilson were married there 10 years ago, in May 2006. Years earlier, Stockbridge teens gathered there in the soft summer nights, smoked a first cigarette, or fulfilled other rites of passage. The rituals, formal and informal, were not wholly inappropriate, as it was always intended that there be something ritualistic about the garden.
Choate traveled and collected “figures and carvings for the garden.” She described her excitement: “I became so fascinated by the Oriental marble figures and carvings that I succumbed left and right.”
Curator Mark Wilson explains, “The Chinese Garden at Naumkeag became the display area for all of the sculptures, lanterns and water-worn stones Mabel Choate brought back from her trip to the Orient in 1935 with the Garden Club of America. The souvenirs she brought back became the inspiration for the Chinese Garden and they fill the space.”
The Chinese Garden is surrounded by a curved wall enclosing a courtyard. You enter through the circular Moon Gate, a distinctive and very popular feature. The courtyard is filled with Chinese statuary and the focal point is a stately temple. The whole is circumnavigated by gentle walking paths.
According to the official description, “The garden represents one of the most complex, recognizable, and prominent landscape features on the property.”
That wall, however impressive, was also the hardest part of the Chinese Garden restoration. According to Wilson, the wall itself was in good shape; the problem was getting anything around or through it: “There was no way to get equipment and material in/out of the garden because it [the wall] was a solid barrier without a large opening. Everything that had to be taken out of the garden– compacted soil, old tree stumps and piles of broken material — over the wall with cranes and a conveyor belt. A backhoe had to be lifted over the wall into the garden. The wall was so beautiful and was in such great shape,” Wilson concluded, “We just had to work around it or over it!”
The Trustees of Reservations entitled the restoration of all of the Fletcher Steele gardens at Naumkeag, “In the Steps of a Master.”
The Trustees consider the gardens at Naumkeag, created over 30 years, a masterpiece because Steele was a leader in establishing modern American landscape design. The gardens are among a dwindling number of Fletcher Steele designs still open to the public and are recognized as his most famous work.
The Trustees raised over $3 million for the four-phase garden and landscape restoration, including a new roof on Naumkeag. In addition, they raised $1.5 million for the next chapter: restoration of the greenhouses and farm fields on the property.
In 1958 Mabel Choate left the property, house and gardens to the Trustees “to care for and keep open for all to enjoy.” True to their mandate, there are daily tours of the house and gardens. Soon there will be teas in the Chinese Garden. and the gardens at Naumkeag will be available for private events.
