Afternoon Garden

According to the National Trust for Historic Preservatio, the Afternoon Garden, complete with its Venetian poles  was Fletcher Steele's first landscape project at the Naumkeag estate in the Berkshires. The  boxwood hedges were shaped to resemble an Oriental rug.

Blue Steps

 

(View from below)

One of the first features people see upon visiting Naumkaeg, depending on how they approach the house, are its iconic Blue Steps. According to the Library of American Landscape History, Fletcher Steele "used industrial materials—cast concrete and metal pipe—and the Italian Renaissance form of the water staircase, planted with lithe white birches that uncannily mimic the stair railings."

 

(View from above)

Naumkaeg

 

According to Wikipedia, "Naumkeag is the former country estate of noted New York City lawyer Joseph Hodges Choate and Caroline Dutcher Sterling Choate, located at 5 Prospect Hill Road, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The estate's centerpiece is a 44-room, Shingle Style country house designed principally by Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White, and constructed in 1885 and 1886." I stopped by for a visit shortly after attending the BSO's rehearsal at Tanglewood.

Tanglewood

Spent a lovely several hours in the Berkshires attending one of the Boston Symphony Orchestra's (BS0) rehearsals at Tanglewood. Recorded just a snippet of Yefim Bronfman "practicing" Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 3 with the BSO while lounging on the lawn in the shade of a tree and snacking on crackers and cheese.