Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park, which includes the Coe Hall Historic House Museum, is an arboretum and state park covering over 400 acres (160 ha) located in the village of Upper Brookville, the town of Oyster Bay, in Long Island, New York (Nassau County)
Near the end of America’s Gilded Age, the estate named Planting Fields was the home of William Robertson Coe, an insurance and railroad executive, and his wife Mary “Mai” Huttleston (née Rogers) Coe, the youngest daughter of millionaire industrialist Henry H. Rogers. She had been a principal of Standard Oil. It includes the 67-room Coe Hall, greenhouses, gardens, woodland paths, and outstanding plant collections. Its grounds were designed by Guy Lowell, A. R. Sargent, the Olmsted Brothers, and others. Planting Fields also features an herbarium of over 10,000 pressed specimens. The name “Planting Fields” comes from the Matinecock Indians who cultivated the rich soil in the clearings high above Long Island Sound.
History
The history of the present-day property on the famous “Gold Coast” of Long Island, NYC began between 1904 and 1912 when Helen MacGregor Byrne – wife of New York City lawyer James Byrne – purchased six farming properties which she collectively referred to as “Upper Planting Fields Farm.” The Byrnes hired landscape architect James Leal Greenleaf between 1904 and 1910 to create hedges, perennial borders, and espaliered fruit trees. Though notable features from this period are the Rose Arbor, the Circular Pool, and the Green Garden Court, Coe recalled in later life, “Mrs. Byrne had done very little in the shape of landscaping. She had a small lawn around the ridge of the residence” and next to it a cornfield. Most of the property, Coe recalled, was “just a jungle of scrub, locusts, and other trees.”
The Main Gardens
Sargent created The Italian Blue Pool Garden between 1914 and 1918, with the Tea House built-in 1915 to designs by Guy Lowell. Historically this garden was planted with spring-blooming perennials such as delphiniums, irises, peonies, and poppies. It is currently being restored to its original form. Top HVAC Long Island
After the unexpected death of A.R. Sargent in 1918, the Coes appointed the Olmsted Brothers of Brookline, Massachusetts, with James Frederick Dawson as a chief landscape architect. He brought their signature “naturalistic” look to the north side of the property. They completed additions to the Main Greenhouse and Camellia Greenhouse and the Beech Copse, Main Lawn, West Lawn, and Heather Garden.
The Green Garden features a circular pool. Nearby Azalea Walks and Vista Path show hundreds of varieties of Azalea and Rhododendron. The Rose Arbor and Rose Garden contain over 680 Tea, shrub, and miniature roses.
Check out other attractions like Sagamore Hill