Gardens

I've read that Naumkaeg's gardens and landscaped grounds were first designed in the late 1880s by Nathan Barrett, then transformed and expanded between 1926 and 1956 by Fletcher Steele and Mabel Choate.

Study

Linda, the other day, commented on the staff that would be required to keep Naumkaeg, with its 44 rooms, clean. Well, in addition, to hiring people to do that, he also employed a secretary (note the desk in the foreground) and, eventually, a butler and footman. I'm told he employed the latter after a visit to some of the great homes in England.

Library

Naumkaeg

Stockbridge, Massachusetts

Dining Room

  

 

A number of visitors touring Naumkaeg's dining room commented rather unfavorably on the dark green bamboo-like wallpaper. I confess, I hadn't noticed it. Being a tea drinker, my eye was drawn instead toward the number of tea pots on the stand to the right. Fantastic! But where were the teacups??? Nary a one in sight. Hmm. . .

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.