AN ATTEMPTED EVOCATION OF A PERSONALITY* Mildred Bliss In the death of Beatrix Farrand the American Society of Landscape Ar- chitects has lost the last surviving member of that farsighted and talented group which founded the society and created landscape architectural standards in this country; and the world has lost a most unusual and a rarely gifted woman. In her girlhood the shrewd intellect of her able lawyer-uncle, John Cad- walader, had already recognized the exceptional abilities of his strong-willed niece. "Let her be a gardener, or, for that matter, anything she wants to be. What she wishes to do will be well done." So he punctuated her British garden trips by giving her shooting parties in Scotland where the gillies pronounced her "As guid as the best shot of a man"; and from her European travels, whence descriptive letters testified to her taste, he pondered her keen powers of obser- vation and her concentrated reading. Finally, having won over the prejudices of late Victorian standards of what became a "lady," Beatrix Jones settled down to work at the Arnold Arboretum under Charles Sprague Sargent. Never was a great teacher granted a pupil more ideally suited to his hopes. His knowledge was absorbed by her eager young intelligence, and the elderly Professor Sargent saw his dream of the continuity of horticultural research in this country assured. And then one day the pupil submitted the plan of a gar- den - paths, benches, group plantings in height and color - and the professor frowned. "Don't waste time on what you call design. You must hybridize and propagate. The only paths necessary are merely for accessibility and there is no time to sit on benches; a tree stump will do as well." Later the pupil made one more effort to stir the comprehension of gardens as an aim in itself, but the master of horticulture could not understand. Sadly he saw his dream vanish and his beloved pupil leave Jamaica Plain and enter, one might say, her very personal garden gate. The following years brought Beatrix Jones experience in the making of small and of large gardens; in forestation and in giving design and varied unity to university campuses-Princeton, Yale, and Chicago; and simultaneously her reputation grew. With her marriage to Dr. Max Farrand, the recognized au- thority on Benjamin Franklin, and their removal to San Marino, Mrs. Farrand adapted her ideas born of the California climate, topography, and plant mate- rial to new treatments and painted her living pictures with hitherto untried palettes. Here too, she again proved her especial genius for architectural adap- tation by converting a nondescript, four-room cube into an elongated and par- ticularly charming home with dignity and every comfort, well suited to the distinguished director of the Huntington Library and his guests. Her profound love of trees and plants gave her an understanding - one is almost tempted to *Reprinted from Beatrix Jones Farrand. 1872-1959; All Appreciation of 11 Great Landscape Gardener (Washington. D.C., Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss, 1960), 9-17 xxi say psychological understanding - of their idiosyncracies. But however definite their preferences and her ready obedience to their needs, she managed some- how SO to place her axes that the vista she wanted took its place as if by happy accident. Unfailingly courteous, she used competently her expressive and beautiful hands to explain the work to the mason and the bricklayer; or to demonstrate how and when to prune; or even, when teaching a novice, to lay a few yards of drain herself. She was, in fact, a thoroughly efficient dirt gardener: her knowl- edge of plant material had never been limited to landscape gardening, nor the designing of a livable house to that of the gazebo. Beatrix Farrand knew all of the problems and ignored none of the difficulties of the exacting but Gentle Art of Gardening. Always preoccupied with scale and quality in every manifestation of the humanities, her imagination, constantly stimulated by association of ideas, was forever creating enriching surprises for the amateur. The tending of an individ- ual plant, the protecting of a stone or marble unit, the care of a wooded hillside equally touched unsuspected responsiveness in the simplest of her fellow work- ers. They were proud to be associated with her and enjoyed watching the new horizons she unfolded to them. While absorbed in making a new garden she kept the individuality of all other gardens untouched by the personality of the new denizen of her prolific imaginary world. She wrote little SO as to create the more. Profoundly sensitive to music and with a fine voice, her greatest sacrifice had been abandoning the promising career of a singer when she put herself to work under Professor Sar- gent. However, she never looked back over her musical shoulder, but trans- ferring her sense of rhythm to the world of nature composed her visual symphonies. Redeeming the long-neglected but fine estate of Dartington Hall near Totnes in Devon gave Mrs. Farrand especial pleasure. The lay of the land, the climate, the farsighted planned-purposes, and the friendly owners appealed to her, and the results she obtained were noteworthy until World War II arrested her work. But her two greatest loves were her own inherited property of Reef Point at Bar Harbor on Mount Desert Island and Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C. On seven acres bounded by Atlantic rocks and a sweep of sea, she SO placed her sheltering conifers and secluded paths that a most astonishing variety of shrubs, flowers, and ground cover became a fascinating enclave of erudition on the scrubby coast of Maine. There she was able to grow plants found as far north as Newfoundland and as far south as North Carolina. This horticulturist's paradise could have been the enlightening lantern to guide the researchers of the future along the road of experimentation - an example of obtaining the greatest use from a small area and of reaping a large harvest from modest means. But among other insurmountable obstacles the difficulty of assuring competent maintenance over years to come loomed too large and Reef Point is no more. Its library, herbarium, and the invaluable collection of Gertrude xxii Jekyll's notes and papers are now properly housed, used, and prized by the Uni- versity of California in Berkeley. The gardens at Dumbarton Oaks were perhaps one of the most difficult problems presented to her, for she found not only an existing and a rather dominating house and an unusually wide variety of grades, but also the very definite personal preferences of the owners with their special interest in design and texture. The gardens were to be for spring and autumn enjoyment and in winter were to have perennial green in abundance. A swimming pool, tennis court, and brook completed the illusion of country life, while clever planting bordering the lawn screened the street on the south side and left the birds un- disturbed. The onrush of spring at Dumbarton Oaks fairly leaves one breath- less before the great billowing mass of forsythia tumbling down two hillsides turned to gold. This and the aerial white hedge of pollarded pear trees are imaginative plantings seen nowhere else. Such were Mrs. Farrand's integrity and loyality that, despite the long ab- sences necessitated by the professional nomadism of the owners, never in all the years did she impose a detail of which she was "sure" but which the owners did not "see"; and never were the owners SO persuasive as to insist on a design which Mrs. Farrand's inner eye could not accept. A deepening friendship born of in- tellectual challenges, of differing tastes, and of the generous tact of her rich wisdom made the years of their close association a singularly happy and most nourishing experience. Never did Beatrix Farrand impose on the land an arbi- trary concept. She "listened" to the light and wind and grade of each area under study. The gardens grew naturally from one another until now, in their luxuriant spring growth, as in the winter when leafless branches show each de- gree of distance and the naked masonry (from brick and limestone near the house, through brick and gray stone in the rose garden, towards stone only in the fountain terrace, and finally to the stone and wood leading to the apple or- chard), there is a special quality of charming restfulness recognized by thou- sands of yearly visitors. There is a touch of whimsy here, an arresting breadth of scale there; and yet there are details SO unobtrusive that they have to be looked "at" to be seen. Thus, Dumbarton Oaks has its own personality sculptured from Beatrix Jones's knowledge and wisdom and from the daydreams and vision of the owners. The bonds of friendship and affection were firm and the guiding "anima" of Beatrix Farrand will linger in all the highlights and shadows. One's constant effort will be to make the future of the Dumbarton Oaks gardens wor- thy of their birthright. xxiii