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| “Garden of Margaret Hicks Gage, Litchfield Garden Club Archives, Litchfield Historical Society, Helga J. Ingraham Memorial Library.” |
To fete their 100- year
anniversary, the Litchfield Garden Club is hosting a flower show and house and
garden tour including two Smithsonian Gardens on June 15 from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
The Flower Show will take place at the Litchfield Community Center located on
421 Bantam Rd. (Rte. 202) in Litchfield and will feature outstanding
horticulture and three exhibits one on garden history and design including
details on four Smithsonian gardens, a second on the history of the Litchfield
Garden Club and a third conservation exhibit on organic food. A boutique offering special garden items will
also be a highlight. The Flower Show at the Community Center is free and open
to the public.
In conjunction with the Flower
Show, the Litchfield Garden Club has organized a very special house and garden
tour of five members’ homes and gardens that includes judged design classes in
each home. Tour tickets and maps are available
for purchase at the Community Center and are $50 per person. Tour goers may also purchase a box lunch at
Breeze Hill Farm Gardens for an additional $18 and enjoy lunch on the grounds
of this spectacular garden. For tickets in advance visit www.litchfieldgardenclub.org for a printable registration form.
Houses featured for this very
special tour include some of Litchfield’s most interesting homes and gardens.
The Ozias Lewis house, built in
1806 is a perfect example of a late traditional
center chimney, 5 bay Federal style dwelling. The garden has newly installed
stonewalls, terraces and imaginative gardens, including extensive beds of
peonies. The gardens provide extensive
views of Chestnut Hill to the east.
The Lismolin House named after
a castle in Tipperary in Ireland is a gracious Colonial Revival style house complete with a Palladian window. The gardens with elegant stonewalls and
garden beds afford wonderful eastern views and contain a former owner’s pet
cemetery.
Perhaps one of the most interesting houses featured on this
tour is the Oliver Wolcott House, built by Oliver Wolcott, Senior, the Colonial High Sheriff of
Litchfield, a member of the Continental Congress, a signer of the Declaration
of Independence and Governor of Connecticut, in 1753-1754, is the oldest house
in the Borough of Litchfield. Many of
the leading figures of their day, including General George Washington,
Lafayette and Alexander Hamilton were entertained here. During the Revolution, the statue of King
George III, torn down by a mob from its pedestal in Bowling Green in New York
City, was brought by oxcart to the orchard behind the house, where the women
and children of Litchfield melted it and molded bullets for the Continental
Army.
The
current owners bought the house in 1978 and carried out extensive renovations
under the direction of expert restorers.
The house has the original, hand-routed, beaded clapboards on its
exterior and oak floors with handmade nails throughout the first floor. The
“keeping room” contains a cooking fireplace and beehive ovens. The delft tiles in the dining room were
installed about 1790 and the paneling over the dining room fireplace is
original 18th century work.
The rear terrace overlooks extensive gardens that are breathtaking.
Another
beautiful home on the tour is the Ethan Allen House, the birthplace of
Revolutionary war hero Ethan Allen in 1738. Today the house boasts a renovated kitchen,
breakfast area and garden room. A
landscape design is in process including renovating the parterres off of the
terrace, originally designed in the early 1950’s. The gardens offer an
extensive eastern view of Chestnut Hill.
Breeze
Hill was built in 1800 as a summer home and the Oldmsted brothers were hired to
landscape the grounds. In 2012, the owners of Breeze Hill Farm joined a select
group of Garden Club of America homeowners whose garden documentation was
accepted into the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Gardens. On
June 15th, you are invited to pick up your reserved boxed lunch here
and enjoy a pastoral picnic lunch in these bucolic meadows and gardens.
Another
Smithsonian Garden featured on the tour is Chestnut Hill Gardens that consists
of a 240-foot perennial border composed
of deer-resistant and native plants. The
border surrounds a large vegetable garden, herb gardens, a water garden, pinetum,
fruit trees and native shrubs.
