History of the Garden
The landscape at the Bellefield Mansion is historically significant, and is a testament to the combined efforts of a dedicated group of local gardeners and of the National Park Service. The Bellefield Mansion is part of the Roosevelt-Vanderbilt National Historic Sites, and now serves as the administrative offices for the region’s National Park Service operations. The “local gardeners” formed the nonprofit Beatrix Farrand Garden Association, a formal Park Partner, now charged with the stewardship of the Beatrix Farrand Garden at Bellefield.
Bellefield Mansion is an elegant 18th century country house, remodeled by famed architects McKim, Mead and White for Sen. Thomas and Sarah Newbold between 1909 and 1911, who remained in the home until 1929. The Morgan family enjoyed the Bellefield property until 1976, when they generously donated the house and surrounding many acres to the National Park Service. The Bellefield house now serves as the regional headquarters for the National Park Service, which manages four sites in the Hudson Valley: the adjacent Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt’s Val-Kill, the Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site, and the Martin Van Buren National Historic Site, as well as the large land donation which allowed for other additions to the overall Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site.
Beatrix Farrand, cousin of Thomas Newbold, was employed to design and implement the hardscape and garden between 1911 and 1912 as a Spring and Autumn seasonal family garden, privately enclosed but giving movement and inclusivity to outside wild plantings, trees, and the property beyond. It was enjoyed later by Newbold descendants, the Morgan Family, who moved from the property in the 1970s. After the Morgan’s donation of the property to the NPS, the garden was unmaintained until 1993, when a group of local citizens recognized the significance of the garden which had been designed by Beatrix Jones Farrand, known as an influential figure in American landscape design history, and they began an effort to bring the garden back to its former beauty.
Although the original fieldstone walls, stone-edged gravel paths, and handsome wood gates remained in place, the planting beds had been lost to time. The planting restoration in the 1990’s resulted in stunning border displays, beds of pink; white; blush, cream and grey; and mauve and purple, all set off by the vine-traced walls and clipped hemlock hedges. While Farrand’s original planting plans for Bellefield had been lost to the ages, a dedicated team of landscape designers and gardeners researched the designs of Farrand’s nearby gardens of the same time period and used historic photos to inform the garden’s restoration.
The garden gates, replete with the Arts & Crafts style hardware designed by Farrand, were fully restored in 2014 by Eagle Scout, Danial Heslin after careful research of her archived documents held at the University of California at Berkeley. Volunteers, working with the small BFGA staff, and in collaboration with the NPS staff, maintain the Garden throughout the year.
