History of the Landscape

Lyndhurst’s architect Alexander Jackson Davis considered himself an architectural composer; designing and integrating both the architecture and landscape. Lyndhurst’s original landscape, likely designed in the 1840s, may be his only surviving landscape composition.

Lyndhurst was designed as a romantic country villa and placed on a rocky promontory above the Hudson River. This early watercolor of the property shows the spartan character of the landscape. Except for a few outcroppings surrounded by trees, the landscape largely reflects its origins as clear-cut farmland.

Lyndhurst’s second owner, George Merritt, hired Bavarian immigrant Ferdinand Mangold to significantly expand Lyndhurst’s landscape. During his 40-year tenure as Master Gardener, Mangold drained the surrounding swamps, created greenswards, planted specimen trees, and established a world-class conservatory whose rare orchids still survive in the collection of the New York Botanical Garden.

After the remodeling of the mansion was completed in 1868, Master Gardener Mangold implemented his vision for the landscape using picturesque elements that arranged the Lyndhurst’s plantings in an artistically composed way, and added unique garden elements such as exotic species and specimen plants throughout the property.

Lyndhurst’s lower landscape design made use of cement sidewalks, seating areas, rocky outcroppings, and picturesque outbuildings. The American chestnut tree pictured, surrounded by a lattice bench, was likely a survivor from the 17th-century.

Second owner George Merritt commissioned an enormous wood-framed greenhouse that was stocked with exotic plants. The design was modeled after French architect Rouault’s design for the Jardin des Plantes conservatory. The Moorish design of the observation tower contained an aviary and was influenced by John Nash’s Royal Pavilion at Brighton. This impressive greenhouse was supposedly the reason Jay Gould purchased Lyndhurst from Merritt’s widow in 1880.

When completed, the Merritt conservatory and surrounding beds were used by Mangold to propagate exotic trees, shrubs, and plants for the estate. This rare image from around 1870 is taken from the Aviary tower and faces the southeast towards the front entrance to the property and Broadway.

A widowed Julia Merritt commissioned this map as a sales tool to showcase the landscape features of the estate as put it up for sale after her husband’s untimely death. Trees planted during the 1840s under Davis and first owner Paulding are shown larger than the trees planted in the 1860s under Merritt and Mangold, showing the delineation between older and newer plantings.

Six months after Jay Gould purchased Lyndhurst, the conservatory and its contents burned to the ground in a massive fire. Gould relocated greenhouse builders, Lord & Burnham, to nearby Irvington and immediately started reconstruction of the metal-framed greenhouse in a gothic style.

Gould’s greenhouse contained over 40,000 varieties of plants from all over the globe. In its day, it was famous for being one the largest, best-stocked private greenhouses in America.

The men pictured here in the center of the Greenhouse were hired by Mangold under George Merritt and many remained on the estate throughout the Gould ownership.

After the death of Ferdinand Mangold, Helen Gould, the fourth owner of Lyndhurst, commissioned a survey to create a plan of existing conditions on the site. This map has been extremely important in guiding the restoration of the landscape.

Helen Gould had a treehouse built around a clump birch that was located directly behind the mansion. Although long gone, the stone landing for the stairway still exists off of the cement walkway down to the Bowling Alley.

Around 1914 Helen Gould added a rose garden to the property.  A symphony of pink roses, this hand-colored image was taken by the female photography firm of Johnson-Hewitt studios. Led by Mattie Edwards-Hewitt, this firm was renowned for its ability to shoot architecture and landscapes.

During Helen Gould’s ownership, this wooden arbor used to adorn the center of the rose garden. Gould later added a Venetian wellhead under the arbor that still exists on the property by the greenhouse.

Famed naturalist John Burroughs was a childhood friend of Jay Gould as they grew up in the Catskills together. Burroughs had a profound influence on Gould’s appreciation of nature. Helen Gould maintained a relationship with Burroughs until his death in 1921. Here, he’s pictured visiting with Helen Gould’s two nieces and adopted son in Roxbury.

Like her father before her, Helen Gould was an avid gardener and naturalist and made certain that all of the children at Lyndhurst spent time planting and gardening. Helen is seen here, in a white hat and dress, with her niece Violette, while her adopted children hoe in the raised beds. A secretary, in a flowered hat with carpetbag, stands nearby and watches.

in 2018, Lyndhurst staff discovered a 30-minute color film of the landscape shot in 1942 by the outgoing superintendent and his wife. This film grab shows the long gone perennial beds that sat next to the rose garden beds. Parts of this fountain, a copy of one in the Boboli Garden, exists in Lyndhurst collections storage.

Footage from the 1942 Garden Film reveals that the Helen Gould rose garden had the Venetian wellhead placed under the center pergola. Later moved by her younger sister, Anna, Duchess of Talleyrand, the wellhead is now on the greenhouse lawn.

Prior to its horticultural collections being sold to benefit Red Cross war efforts, visiting Royal Air Force pilots took a moment to stop and smell the carnations as seen in the 1942 Lyndhurst Garden Film. The orchid collection was sold at the auction to benefit the Red Cross and was subsequently donated to the New York Botanic Garden, whose orchid house had burned in the late 1930s. Helen Gould also donated plants in her time to the NYBG, some of which still thrive there today in their conservatories.

House of Dark Shadows was filmed at Lyndhurst during a period when the estate only just began to return from decades of neglect. The movie still shows the property in an overgrown state. This marble rhyton was damaged, removed, and thrown in a trash heap. It was recently restored to its position in front of the bowling alley.

In 2018, Lyndhurst began restoration efforts of the Hudson River-adjacent lower landscape. Rock-lined sidewalks and period wooden benches were rebuilt and reinstalled in the Rockeries based on photographs from the 1870s.

Lyndhurst is in the midst of a decade-long restoration plan of its 67-acre landscape. This well-documented landscape has never been completely redesigned in its 100-year history. Successive owners maintained its early layout and then made selective additions, making Lyndhurst a catalog of changing American landscape practices from 1840 to 1940.