Gardens

• "When the the great "portes" open, we catch a glimpse of the sunny court with a garden behind. The house extends around three sides of the paved court; in the center is a large flowerbed filled with scarlet geraniums, hollyhocks and roses; an old well has been covered over and transformed into a pansy bed, and here and there are boxes overflowing with gay nasturtiums. The tall trees and shrubs in the garden shield the court from the view of neighboring houses, and in the pleasant seclusion, the noisy, dusty boulevard seems far away"  (Elisabeth Taylor, The Churchman, October 20, 1894, p. 489).

"(We) were quite content with the garden of the club. It was a very big one for a private house in a great city and possessed, in spring, the handsomest bed of wallflowers I have ever seen, and an acacia, and, even, a Judas tree. It was very amusing to watch the Judas tree at its tricks in the spring. . .first the unfolding of the funny nasturtium-like little leaves, and then the appearance of the tiny red blossoms, like the little Japanese sticks that one gets in very superior crackers, which unfold in water, under one’s very eyes, into little paper flowers. And the back of an immeuble fronting another street served as an ‘ivy mantled tower’ to gaze at from one’s bedroom window, for it was as thickly covered with ivy as any ruin of romance (Hope Mirrlees, Collected Poems, ed. Sandeep Parmar, Carcanett Press Ltd., 2011, p. 93).

Gildersleeve particularly treasured the property's garden: "In later years I spent many a pleasant summer evening in that garden, hearing the news of Madrid, Vienna, Stockholm, from university women who had just come from various cities of the world" (141).

In 1930, 6000FF to renew ivy and shrubbery.  Proposal is to have about 7000FF in the budget for maintaining the garden (Aug. 1, 1930 letter to VCG). 

Letter from Virginia Newcomb (Aug. 7, 1930): "...our old Judas tree is cracking and has to have two bands and a prop that will be finished tomorrow."