EVOLUTION OF THE ROOF GARDEN IN NEW YORK CITY

The evolution of the roof garden may have a significant precedent in ancient Pompeii... in the most preserved villa from the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, The Villa of the Mysteries.  “There are elements from atrium style houses that remain in its plan, including the preference for axial symmetry, but the ordering of the rooms differ.  The entranceway led to the peristyle, followed by the atrium and finally the tablinum, while extensive terraced gardens surrounded the villa on three non-entrance sides.  Based upon the original inward-focused house, the architectural developments at the Villa of the Mysteries begin to suggest a building in which the exterior elevations and their connection with the surrounding countryside were becoming more important.”1  

reproduced from "Roof Gardens", Theodore Osmundsun

Theodore Osmondsun, designer of many roof gardens and author of the essential treatise on roof gardens, believes that “while little is known of individual roof gardens during the reign of Roman emperors, roofs were commonly used as outdoor living spaces throughout the Mediterranean world.” 2

The desire to create an aerial oasis recreationally at the Villa of the Mysteries could possibly be the same as at a firehouse 2,000 years later.  In an article from the year 1912, New York City Firehouses were being built in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan with roof gardens to provide for physical exercise, health and comfort for our brave firefighters. Outdoor gardens were to “resemble those to be found on the roofs of residences in ancient Rome.”3 

It also became commonplace for apartment buildings and schools to create gardens, playgrounds or refreshment areas on their rooftops. Beginning over a hundred years ago, New Yorkers have enjoyed their rooftops. These rooftops became the pleasure gardens of the middle classes, creating a true sense of community, as described in the Brooklyn Eagle…

“They get clean, fresh sea breezes off the water and plenty of sun, so that to look at the young people of the family one might imagine from their tanned cheeks that they have spent the Summer cruising on some luxurious yacht instead of living on the ninth floor of a New York flat. The young children play dolls and marbles upstairs in the shadow of the awning all morning. The older women bring up their fancy work and sew there, write letters at one of the tables or read novels swinging in the hammock. Five o'clock tea is brought up there and partaken of out of doors, and when the sun gets low enough to have lost something of his vigor the young people play tennis, having set up a net and marked out a court on the roof, with tall nets swung up around it to keep the ball from plunging over into the street below and startling some cab horse into hysterics. All the family lounge there after dinner, chatting, smoking, singing choruses to a banjo accompaniment and breathing in salt winds from the bay over which they can see the silver path of the moonlight and the gleam of Liberty's torch."

“All evidence suggests that the first use of a rooftop as a commercial garden environment was at Aronson’s proposed theatre building which opened in 1882 as the Casino theatre.³” This garden above a Broadway theatre was quickly copied by the second recreation of Madison Square Garden (on 26^th street), which successfully came into competition with the Casino.  Subsequently several more roof garden theatres opened up do to their enormous success.

Oscar Hammerstein's theatre and roof garden

“From the 1890’s to the beginning of the depression, roof gardens were attracting a new wealthier middle class in search of open air amusement.  With extravagant décor and lighting and financially backed by the Vanderbilts and Morgan’s.  Because there was no air conditioning at that time, the theatre season was closed during the heat of summer… therefore the opera, theatre, dining and dances w. huge orchestras all took place up on the roof."4

early hotel roof garden

 previous six images reprinted from "The Roof Gardens of Broadway Theatres", Steven Bruge Johnson.

As the Broadway theatre roof garden became commonplace, the idea struck other builders and developers.  On the same date, June 16^th 1908, two rival hotels opened their roof gardens. An orchestra played within a huge pagoda on the roof of the Waldorf Astoria as guests sipped mint-julips in wicker furniture.  Over on Times Square, metal cupolas covered with geraniums, vines covered pergolas and bay trees contributed to an Italian landscape on the roof of the Hotel Astor. , so did this exert an influence on the rest of society.  New office buildings began to install open-air restaurants and “within a minute of their office desks they may find better air and probably an extended view of water and open country.”5   Upscale apartment buildings in Manhattan and ritzy hotels, turned to their terraces and rooftops to create their own interpretations of aerial gardens.  As is historically common, the lifestyles of the wealthy and high society had an impact on the cultural mainstream.  Newly created apartment buildings set aside roof space for their owners and renters. This trickled down to masses as “the settlement workers of the slums count their roof garden as one of their most valuable assets.”6   Roof Gardens were used for baseball, basketball and tennis games; at night there were classes for gymnastics and folk dances.  The floors were covered with smooth tiles, parapets were raised or extended with the addition of wire netting, stone furniture and pergolas were added, too.

very early 19th century 5th Avenue roofgarden, House Beautiful

reprinted from "American Review of Reviews"

Other New Yorkers with limited financial means found creative ways to enjoy their roofs.  “Every summer the roof garden develops more and more in popularity and attractiveness among the stay-at-homes.  Residents carry up a load of beach sand on the elevator, cover the concrete with a layer of it… those that can afford it have a glass screen erected on one side to keep off the winds, then an awning is created above palms and potted plants, shrubs and boxes of growing flowers disposed about attractively.”7 

^1.A World History of Architecture, by Marian Moffett, Michael Fazio, Lawrence Wodehouse, McGraw-Hill Professional, NY 2003) 

2. Roof gardens, by Theodore Osmundson, Norton, NY.NY. 1999

3. NYTimes, December 16, 1912)

4. (American Review of Reviews)

5. (American Review of Reviews)

6.(American Review of Reviews)

7.(Brooklyn Eagle 7.14.1889)

FAMILY AFFAIR

Edith Wharton, Beatrix Ferrand and Mildred Bliss.

Within the last two months I have had the pleasure of visiting both Edith Wharton’s estate “The Mount” in Lennox, Massachusetts and “Dumbarton Oaks” in Georgetown, D.C. 

As I recall both visits and the design of the sites I thought it would be interesting to research some background material regarding the two sites, the property owners and the relationships with and about Beatrix Ferrand.  Beatrix Ferrand was arguably the first female landscape architect of note (although she preferred the term “landscape gardener”) and the lone woman among the founding members of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

The Mount reflects the taste of Wharton and to some degree her indirect influence on the future masterpiece that Ferrand created with the owners Robert and Mildred Bliss - Dumbarton Oaks.  Through Edith Wharton’s social connections, Beatrix was introduced to many of her future clients, among them the owner of Dumbarton Oaks, Mildred Bliss.

Edith Wharton was many things -- writer, socialite, gardener a supreme arbiter of taste.  (She claimed to be a better garden designer than writer!) Among the forty books she authored – best selling novels and collections of short stories, were authoritative works on architecture, gardens, interior design and travel. Wharton is credited with designing the gardens at The Mount, with additional landscape design/architecture by Beatrix Ferrand.  While Edith Wharton was laying out the gardens she was also working on the book “Italian Villas and their Gardens” – a strong Italian influence can seen in the Mount’s landscape design.  According to the Edith Wharton Restoration organization, Ferrand completely designed the maple-lined drive leading to the house and an elaborate kitchen garden (no longer functioning) that occupied the field in front of the stable.

The Mount is essentially a house with a grand terrace built overlooking the Italian inspired gardens.  A broad Palladian staircase leads down from the terrace to gravel walks that descend to a lime walk (linden trees).  This serves as a connecting hallway between the two major garden rooms.  

Views of the giardino segreto from the house and return view looking back at the house. 

The “giardino segreto” was paid for with the proceeds from Wharton's first bestseller, “the House of Mirth.”

View of the flower gardens, cu of the dolphin fountain

To the right, facing away from the house is the walled garden (or “giardino segreto”).  On the left there is a French-style flower garden with arborvitaes arranged around a pool with Wharton’s dolphin fountain.  Other items of interest include two flights of grass covered earthen steps, which lead up to the terrace, a rock garden, and various other niches. What I found of pure delight was the pet cemetery.

Grass steps leading up to the house

One of several pet tombstones.

As a supreme arbiter of taste within her social circles, Wharton carefully planned the grounds of The Mount. Similarly, Mildred Bliss had a very controlling “hand” in the creation of Dumbarton Oaks.  Bliss’s ideas for the gardens began well before she brought a professional onto the scene. Her ideas were primary to the design of the Oaks. British Landscape Architect Lanning Roper, a friend to both Bliss and Ferrand, has stated that ‘Mrs. Bliss knew from the start what she wanted to create.  She had definite conceptions, some of which she treasured from childhood.” *

Grass steps at Dumbarton Oaks

Both properties/gardens have strong Italianate influence – in the topography built upon, design of the garden rooms and aesthetic within these “rooms.” Historian Walter Whitehead suggests that the pre-existing, rudimentary terracing of the steep slope that Dumbarton Oaks was built upon suggested to Mildred Bliss the siting of many of the great Italian country house of the 16^th through 18^th centuries.  She was familiar with such renaissance villas both from her extensive travels to Italy and from Edith Wharton’s influential Italian Villas and their Gardens of 1919. *

Plan of Dumbarton Oaks

Several years earlier Bliss had arranged to meet Edith Wharton in Paris after reading her novels and influential articles on interior decoration. Later in her life, Bliss eventually wrote of her admiration for Wharton who had been “her stimulus for nearly forty years.” From that meeting in Paris, they consistently traveled in the same social circles – during WWI both sharing France’s highest civilian award for their wartime charitable activities in Europe. 

“Years later when Milded Bliss returned to the United States, she used memories of civilized life in Europe before the war as the model for the home she planned to create.  The Oaks would be based upon the Mediterranean model, first developed by the Romans, in which outdoor spaces, and especially those nearest the house would be treated as rooms – extensions of the interior living areas.” The steep slope at the Oaks suggested an organization along the lines of the Italian Renaissance gardens, with these individual rooms dropping down the hillside in terraces, their character gradually devolving from formal and architectural near the house to informal and naturalistic at the perimeter.” *

Ferrand had the good fortune to grow up in the gilded age with her aunt, Edith nurturing her career that began with her design of the Kitchen garden at the Mount. Wharton was only ten years her senior and in much of my readings, is seemingly just as much a close friend and confidant than niece.  She was introduced to many of her future socialite clients not only by her aunt, but her lifelong dear friend, Henry James.

Interestingly, while Edith eventually introduced and spoke of her niece to Mildred Bliss, the first commission of Ferrand’s career was working with a swampy area on a family’s property in Bar Harbor, Maine.  The property owner was Anna Bliss, Mildred’s mother!  (Mildred was several years younger than Beatrix and in her writings had no recollection of this coincidence.) Twenty-five years later they worked together on Dumbarton Oaks.

* Dumbarton Oaks, Garden into Art; Susan Tamulevich, Monacelli Press, N.Y., N.Y.

** All photographs ©Todd Haiman 2010