photos: Lauren Stimson, ASLA
It's not often you get the chance to restore a historic landscape with links to the Gilded Age, the beginning of Acadia National Park in Maine, and a land preservation movement in New England.
Stephen Stimson Associates won an Honor Award for the five-acre site once owned by Charles William Eliot, president of Harvard University and father of landscape architect Charles Eliot.
The original property was purchased in 1879, but by the mid-1900's it had new owners, and the site fell into disrepair. A new family bought the property much later and wanted a family retreat integrated with the surrounding landscape. The site was once part of Acadia National Park, and Stimson's goal was to reconnect it ecologically with the park.
Now, the main house, terraces, guest house, pier and beach are connected by woodland trails; there's a garden of moss, lichen, beach stone and sand; red maple wetlands, birch thickets, witch hazel groves, an alpine meadow and lawns here and there.
As the judges' noted, "The fact of the integrity of site, that the interventions are not easily detected is a testament to the skill of the landscape architects."
A full description of the project can be found here.
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