Contemporary view of Mrs. Farrand's study from heather beds in main garden.

Maine played a very important part in the life of Beatrix Farrand, and a substantial part of her intellectual and professional life was rooted there.¹ Her last home and garden, near Salisbury Cove, on Mt. Desert Island, is distinguished in many ways. It is the last garden she designed and the only 12-month garden she designed in Maine. It was built from architectural, horticultural, and ornamental fragments and ideas collected over a lifetime. It was the final and fitting environment for this remarkable designer and horticulturist.

Beatrix Jones was born in New York on June 19, 1872, of Mary C. Rawle and Frederick R. Jones. Her interest in landscape gardening was fostered by her aunt, author Edith Wharton, her uncle, John Cadwalader, and her grandmother, Lucretia Rhinelander Jones. Early recollections of horticultural lessons at her grandmother's side, around 1877, and memories of the laying out and construction of the grounds of "Reef Point," the family's Bar Harbor summer estate in 1883 (designed by Roche & Tilden Architects), were warmly recounted among such influences.²

Beatrix Jones, still in her teens, met Charles Sprague Sargent, director of the Arnold Arboretum, and studied with him there for four years, readily absorbing his deep love of plants, his appreciation for a fine reference library, and his desire for study and research. Sargent urged Beatrix to travel abroad and study gardens and parks in order "to observe and analyse natural beauty...and learn from all the great arts as all art is akin."³

Residents of Garland Farm, 1958, left to right, include Amy M. Garland, Lewis Garland, Beatrix Farrand, and Clementine Walter, at the front gate to the new wing, flanked by the ffront gardens. Note large pots of rosemary.

In 1895, Beatrix Jones set up a practice in her mother's New York house, and quickly established a remarkable professional reputation. She associated herself with other prominent practitioners of landscape architecture, and became a founding member of the American Society of Landscape Architects in 1899⁴-at the age of 27. During the best and most prolific period (1900-1940) of her design career, she undertook more than 50 projects on Mt. Desert Island. The evolution of the gardens there, including those designed by Beatrix Farrand, represents a cross-section of the history of that formative period in American Landscape Architecture.

In 1913, Beatrix Jones married Max Farrand, Professor of American History at Yale, and took his surname as her professional name thereafter.⁵ She continued her growing practice from offices in New York and Bar Harbor, with frequent trips to supervise projects across the country. In 1917, Reef Point was deeded to Beatrix by her mother, Mary Jones. The Farrands spent summers there, and together began a visionary educational endeavor: Reef Point Gardens.

Reef Point Gardens held a special place in the hearts and minds of both Beatrix and Max Farrand. After Max Farrand's death, in 1945, Beatrix directed her considerable energies to Reef Point Gardens as a botanical garden, library and horticultural experiment station.⁶ She began publishing the Reef Point Bulletins in 1946⁷ to explain the undertakings at Reef Point Gardens. Her value for research was given form in the design document, herbarium, library, and living collections. Bar Harbor's remoteness from academic centers, and the seasonal nature of the resort community framed Reef Point as an amusement, rather than a true educational institution. Scholarly use of Reef Point Gardens did not attain the level Beatrix Farrand hoped for, and with additional factors of uncertainties concerning long-term finances and maintenance of the endeavor,⁸ she reluctantly decided to abandon the project in 1955. Once she decided to end Reef Point Gardens, the transformation of Reef Point-and her life-were swift.

Plan of Garland Farm, showing final configuration of original buildings, additions, and gardens.

The main house was torn down, and fixtures, architectural elements, and materials saved for reuse. The Reef Point library, design drawing, and herbarium collections were entrusted to the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of California at Berkeley,⁹ where "it would be used and cared for in a manner fitting its educational value."¹⁰ The property was sold to Robert W. Patterson, her long-trusted architect and Reef Point board member, for disassembly and distribution of the plant collections. Charles K. Savage, garden designer and board member, raced to save the plant collection, designing two new gardens in Northeast Harbor (the Asticou Azalea Garden and Thuya Garden) and raising funds for their creation, and supervising their construction. It is not generally known that a third part of the plant collection was moved to Garland Farm, near Salisbury Cove-the final home and garden of Beatrix Farrand.

Garland Farm was the ancestral home of Lewis Garland, longtime superintendent at "Reef Point," and his wife, Amy Garland, Reef Point's chief horticulturist. It consisted of a ca. 1800 cape, with a gambreled barn and a garage-workshop, on the remaining acres of the original homestead.¹¹ The Garlands were very close to Mrs. Farrand and, when her retirement from Reef Point was evident, they planned to move her to Garland Farm. Robert Patterson designed an apartment addition, attached by an el to the main house, in 1955-56. The wing, sandwiched between the main house and barn, was mostly built with architectural salvage from the former "Reef Point" residence. The new resident foursome at Garland Farm-Amy and Stew Garland, Clementine Walter, and Mrs. Farrand-had been the core of life at Reef Point.

Front bluestone and brick walk, with crisp box hedges, leading to entrance for Farrand wing, 1958. Architectural components came from the dismantled Reef Point cottage.

The existing landscape of Garland Farm was typical of a simple Maine farm: a few ornamental plantings near the house, some hedgerows for wind protection and screening, a vegetable garden, and extensive hay fields. Into this Mrs. Farrand designed two modest gardens that sandwiched her wing, front and back, like a conventional suburban yard-all in less than 1/10 acre.

The front garden, framed with sections of Reef Point fence, was for favorite Asian and native plants, on gently sculpted rolling ground set with accent boulders. Plants included rhododendrons, a Japanese cherry, several azaleas, cypress, yew, mixed native and Asian ground covers, and a tidy boxwood hedge lining the bluestone walkway. The rustic granite bench from Reef Point, seen in many photographs of the perennial borders there, was installed in this front garden, along with the Chinese ceramic elliptical basin that now resides at Thuya Garden.¹²

The entrance porch features railings, a pendant light fixture, and the front door from Reef Point.¹³ Patterson also designed a series of removable glass panels and a door that could be installed to transform the porch to a glassed vestibule for wintering large container plants.

IThe main garden, at the back of the wing, contained the favorite elements of Farrand's herbaceous plant collection, along with her beloved heathers and heaths. The garden, facing south-southeast, corresponds perfectly to the floorplan of the three rooms facing it: Mrs. Farrand's suite, her study, and the suite of her companion, Clementine Walter. The garden, enclosed by a carved wooden fence from Reef Point,¹⁴ consists of a series of rectilinear "parterres" with gravel paths between. The plan is highly axial and ordered, while the plantings within the beds are flowing masses-giving a more informal overall effect. The central panels, opposite Farrand's study, are mostly heaths and heathers from her global collection, interplanted with lavender. Panels of mixed perennials and annuals lie outside the other rooms, along with a narrow border all around the inside of the fence.

Main garden, 1958, with carved Reef Point fence behind heather beds. Note Buddha sculpture to right.

The back garden was integrated visually into the adjacent living spaces by French doors opening out from each room, and windows overlooking the garden. This garden featured several favorite ornaments: granite millstones-used as landings for each of the 3 sets of French doors-a lead cistern (now residing at Thuya Garden¹⁵), a cast bird bath, and a sculpture of Buddha. The structural backdrop, outside the fence, is formed primarily by a composition of 3 Japanese cherry trees-believed to be un-named hybrids from the Arnold Arboretum-asymmetrically planted, and surrounded by shrub roses and other shrubs from Reef Point.

Extra plantings were added along the driveway and surrounding the main gardens, to help meld the more intensely planted Farrand gardens with the simpler surroundings of the cape. Boxwood and rhododendrons, were repeated to tie the schemes together, but an important element in the surrounding planting was larger specimens from Farrand's collection. These include a Dawn Redwood,¹⁶ a Florida Dogwood, a Stewartia, a Golden Chain Tree, Koreanspice Viburnum, Enkianthus, Forsythia, Hawthorne, and numerous Azaleas. These plants persist today, along with some of the groundcovers introduced at that time.

FA small greenhouse and potting shed were added to the property for propagation purposes, while the large potted plants, such as Rosemary and Lemon Verbena, were overwintered in the glass entrance porch. Remnant packets of the seeds imported from all over the world can still be found in the disused potting shed.¹⁷

View east across Mrs. Farrand's study, 1958, showing main garden plantings, lead cistern, and stepped fence at edge of garden.

Beatrix Farrand died at Garland Farm on February 28, 1959 at the age of 86. Her ashes still mingle with the shores of Frenchman's Bay. The most notable surviving examples of her work on Mt. Desert Island include the Byrne Garden, the Herter Garden, the Kennedy Garden, the Mildred McCormick Garden, the Vance McCormick Garden, the Milliken Garden, the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden, the Seal Harbor Village Green, and Garland Farm. The truism that gardens usually die with their owners is proved by the scarcity of surviving examples.

Garland Farm is the distillation of Beatrix Farrand's intimate home environment: architectural elements, ornaments, and plants, and has weathered the last 47 years surprisingly well. There have been two private owners since the Garlands lived at Garland Farm.18 The recent death of the second owner, and the impending estate settlement and sale of the property this year, leave its future in doubt, but efforts are underway to raise support to acquire and restore Beatrix Farrand's final garden, and make it accessible to the public.

Maine native Patrick Chassé, ASLA, maintains an active design practice, based in Bar Harbor, Maine, with historic landscape projects in the U.S. and abroad. He lectures at the Arnold Arboretum, and other botanical gardens across the country, and is currently working on a book on moss culture.

Further Reading on Beatrix Farrand
Balmori, Diana, Maguire, Diane K. and McPeck, Eleanor. Beatrix Farrand's American Landscapes, Sagaponack, NY: Sagapress, 1985.

Bliss, Mildred, "An Attempted Evocation of a Personality," Landscape Architecture, 49 (Summer, 1959) pp. 218-24.

Brown, Jane. Beatrix: The Gardening Life of Beatrix Jones Farrand, 1872-1959. New York: Viking, Penguin Group, 1995.

Chassé, Patrick, "A Dream Transplanted," Garden Design, 7:1 (Spring 1988) pp.26-31, 74-75.

Dietz, Paula. Introduction to The Bulletins of Reef Point Gardens. Bar Harbor, Maine: The Island Foundation, with Saga Press, 1997.

McGuire, Diane Kostial (ed.), Beatrix Farrand's Plant Book for Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1982.

McGuire, Diane Kostial, and Lois Fern, Beatrix Jones Farrand (1872-1959): Fifty Years of American Landscape Architecture, Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1982.

McPeck, Eleanor M., "Beatrix Jones Farrand, 1872-1959." A Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Maine. Portland, Maine: Maine Citizens for Historic Preservation, 1992.

Salon, Marlene, "Beatrix Jones Farrand, Pioneer in Gild Edged Gardens," Landscape Architecture, 67 (January, 1977) pp. 69-77.