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Bayard Cutting Arboretum State Park

 
Gardener's Dictionary: Bayard Cutting Arboretum

A 690-acre private estate, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted in 1887 and given to the Long Island (New York) Park Commission in 1952. Although the site suffered severe damage from Hurricane Gloria in 1985, the pinetum features many specimens that date back to the original plantings. The arboretum has the most extensive collections of firs, spruces, pines, hemlocks, cypress, and yews on Long Island.

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Wikipedia: Bayard Cutting Arboretum State Park
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Bayard Cutting Arboretum State Park is located on the west bank of the Connetquot River, in Long Island's Suffolk County, New York, USA in the hamlet of Great River near East Islip . The extensive landscape garden is in the nature of an estate arboretum, laid out, starting in 1887, for William Bayard Cutting (1850 - 1912) by Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of Central Park. The house, "Westwood" and its landscaped park, were given to the people of Long Island by Cutting's widow and daughter "to provide an oasis of beauty and quiet for the pleasure, rest, and refreshment of those who delight in outdoor beauty; and to bring about a greater appreciation and understanding of the value and importance of informal planting." Charles Sprague Sargent, director of the Arnold Arboretum advised in developing the extensive conifer collection north of the carriage house. Some of the most mature planting was badly damaged in Hurricane Gloria in 1985.

Contents

Westbrook

Westbrook, the large rambling house of many gables and tall chimneys, in the Tudor style designed by architect Charles C. Haight (1886), is also open to the public. Westbrook is one of the last remaining estates on the South Shore of Long Island and. as most that remain in existence, it is neither family owned or occupied. Scottish heather was shipped to provide thatch for the gate house, which remains at the corner of Montauk Highway and Great River Road— a practice that was interrupted by World War I. In 1895 Mr. Cutting and his brother laid out a golf course at Westbrook, known to be the first private golf course in the United States.

When a fire in 1895 burned down many of the farm buildings, Stanford White was commissioned to draw the plans for a modern dairy, known as Westbrook Farms, with many innovative features.

The estate has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1973.[1]

William Bayard Cutting's grandfather, Robert Cutting, had been Robert Fulton's partner in the ferry from Brooklyn to New York; they married sisters who were daughters of Walter Livingston. Cutting was a West India merchant who developed railroad interests; his son was a pioneer in refining sugar from sugar beets.

Activities and services

Food, Gift shop, Nature trail, Recreation programs.

Films with scenes shot at Westbrook

See also

Notes

External links

Coordinates: 40°45′N 73°10′W / 40.75°N 73.16°W / 40.75; -73.16



 
 

 

Copyrights:

Gardener's Dictionary. Taylor's Dictionary for Gardeners, by Frances Tenenbaum. Copyright © 1997 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Bayard Cutting Arboretum State Park" Read more