The future of Innisfree Garden, a Millbrook treasure, at risk

MILLBROOK — Innisfree Garden has been, and continues to be, one of the great treasures of the region. Tucked away in the outskirts of the village, half of it being in the town of Pleasant Valley, this private estate has been open to the public since 1960. Visitors from nearby and around the world visit the unique garden, walking around the 185-acre site surrounding a lake. Innisfree Garden is said to be gorgeous no matter the season, whether autumn when the air is chilled and the leaves are colorful, winter when the waterfalls freeze, spring when the water lilies speckle the lake or summer, when the heat is steaming off the greenery. But now the tranquil beauty of Innisfree is in danger.The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) released its Landslide List of Landscape and Patronage for 2012 during the first week in October. Landslide is the annual thematic compendium of threatened and at risk landscapes listed on the TCLF website. The purpose of the Landslide list is to recognize endangered sites and the organizations and patrons that helped create them, as well as celebrate the landscape’s contribution to the community. The TCLF Landslide aims to help sites that are endangered receive national attention and remind people of their existence. The 2012 Landslide list included 12 sites nationwide, one of which is Innisfree Garden. Others include Jones Beach on Long Island and Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.“Innisfree now has a small endowment but it has never been rich,” said Oliver Collins, president of the Board of Trustees at Innisfree Garden Foundation. “We soldier forward with what we have and keep the place reasonably nice.“There are always ongoing projects, none of which necessarily drove it to being on the list, but we need money and are looking for donations [to keep it running],” he added.The property was first sought out by Walter and Marion Beck, who were drawn to the site in 1903 because of the lake; their house was built on the property by the architecture firm Carrere and Hastings. Carrere and Hastings was very popular at the turn of the last century, and one of its most famous architectural works is the New York City Public Library. Marion Beck was a divorcee who was very wealthy and her husband, Walter, had a lot of ideas but no money, according to David Greenwood, historian for the village of Millbrook and the town of Washington. “His career was spent using his wife’s money to create this image of paradise,” said Greenwood. “He started to landscape it and typical of the time, the landscape initially was very French. But as he became more and more interested in landscaping he developed a real interest in Chinese, Japanese, Asian garden concepts.”Beck ultimately created his own interpretation of Chinese or Asian garden designs. Greenwood said that Beck coined the term “cup garden,” which is based on the Asian concept that if you only have a bit of property, create a garden that becomes a self-contained universe.“The lake is a giant tea cup, with water in the cup,” said Greenwood. “All around the rest of the cup you’ve got the landscape, and the water in the tea cup reflects the sky above. In fact, [it mimics] what you find in a Chinese scroll. Imagine calligraphy in Chinese scrolls long and horizontal and that’s exactly what this is. So you walk around unfolding that scroll between heaven and earth.”In 1938 Beck met Lester Collins, a student studying landscape and architecture at Harvard University. Collins worked with Beck’s landscape before traveling to China to study. Collins then traveled to North Africa as a student on the eve of World War II. Collins taught at Harvard and was a Fulbright Scholar in Kyoto, Japan. Walter Beck died in 1954 and Collins returned to Innisfree and worked for Marion Beck. “With Beck’s death in 1954 and Lester Collins coming in, an interesting thing happened,” said Greenwood. “Basically what exists at Innisfree today has less to do with Walter Beck and an incredible amount to do with Lester Collins, because he altered, changed and manipulated the landscape.”There was an attempt to get the Beck estate on the National Registry, however it was denied. The Innisfree Board of Trustees decided to tear down Beck’s house in 1983; it happened over a weekend and was a decision that wasn’t favored by the community.“Everyone was horrified that this extraordinary house was gone,” said Greenwood. “It could have been used as a conference center for classes, students could have come, it could have been used for a variety of things but it’s gone now. Lester Collins prevailed; his thought was it has nothing to do with the house and it has everything to do with the landscape.”Greenwood said through books and articles Collins said he knew intimately what Beck wanted to do, and that he was continuing with what Beck would have done if he had lived. Collins was the man who determined how Innisfree looked and Collins’ passion was to create a living tribute to Beck. Marion’s fortune went into an endowment to maintain the property; the endowment was overseen by the Board of Trustees, with the president being Collins. “Marion Beck got sick before she died, and even in the late 1950s you could still spend a great deal of money on medical care and so instead of leaving an endowment to the foundation they left debt,” said Oliver Collins, son of Lester and current president of Board of Trustees at the Innisfree Foundation.On May 1, 1960, Innisfree Garden was open to the public; Lester Collins died in 1990. Innisfree still prevails, attracting people when the grounds are open from May 7 to Oct. 20. The pristine grounds reportedly look as beautiful as in 1903, when the property caught the eye of the Becks. However, Collins said, the long-term future of Innisfree is not guaranteed.“For the immediate future, over the next five years or even a decade, we will survive,” said Collins. “But ultimately we will need help from the community if we are going to survive for the indefinite future. Innisfree always relied on a great deal of professional services. If Innisfree is going to survive our debt, which won’t happen anytime soon but will eventually happen, we will ultimately need to professionalize these conditions. At the moment we can’t even think about that.”Collins said that some major projects the foundation is struggling to address include cleaning up from the Oct. 31 snowstorm last year as well as a severe storm that caused more damage this past summer. The board is looking for donations to help with both of those projects. The Innisfree Foundation has a new website, www.innisfreegarden.org, which has a link to TCLF with information on how to help support Innisfree and solidify its future.“It represents an aspect of our culture that is so important,” said Greenwood. “If this was taken over and turned into a development, what a tragedy that would be. We are fortunate that there are organizations like the Innisfree Foundation that at this point are maintaining it, but for the future there needs to be support by a greater network financially.”