The website
primarily details this historic home, but illustrates what is probably
the most famous and first American “modern” garden, Fletcher
Steele’s Blue Steps (1938). I concur with his statement: “The
chief vice in gardens is to be merely pretty.” What both
surprised and delighted Jennifer Brown (a former editor at fine gardening
magazine & current principal of wild
indigo Garden Design) and me was the Chinese Garden, which usually
plays (to mix a metaphor) second fiddle to the Steps. Here we discovered
a plethora of inspiring details: lots of interesting stonework and
a spiritual sensibility even after many decades of change. Interestingly,
the Choate family originally wanted to hire F. L. Olmsted. However,
because they bought the property for a certain magnificent oak and
because Olmsted suggested removing the tree and building the house
in its place, the clients eventually hired Steele instead.
