FREE TIP SHEETS!
How to deadhead Summer Flowers with the FREE DIG IT Newsletter.



PLEASURES  
caramoor center for music untermyer gardens and park new york bus trip

September Serenade

by DIG-IT

The Friends of the Frelinghuysen Arboretum and DIG IT! are off on another garden bus trip to visit two stunning gardens with history, art and music! Sit back. Leave the driving to us as we head to New York on a September Serenade.

Stop One: Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts in Katonah.

We’ll start with a guided tour of its many Italianate gardens such as the early 1900s Sunken Garden and the more contemporary Sense Circle Garden designed by Catherine Ziegler. The garden tour includes experiencing a special large-scale, sound art installation: In the Garden of Sonic Delights. A special treat follows: Flamenco in the Courtyard with dancer Isabel del Di'a, guitarist/composer Rafael Brunn and a singer. The outdoor Courtyard is surrounded by gardens and cloisters within the interior of the 25,000 square-foot Rosen House.

Next we’ll have a guided tour of the Rosen House, the former home of Lucie Dodge and Walter Rosen. The Mediterranean style home is now a museum of untold treasures including several centuries of Asian and Renaissance art, doors designed for a 1700s Venetian Palace, 18th-century rooms from private European villas and chateaux, a 17th-century French library, 16th-century painted Spanish ceiling, a gilded bed that belonged to Pope Urban VIII, Gothic tapestries and thousands of objects of art. It is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Then we’ll savor a luncheon buffet with a taste of Spain and the Mediterranean.


Stop Two: Untermyer Gardens
Prepare to become more excited as we head to Untermyer Gardens, formerly part of one of the most celebrated estate gardens in the country. The property had a list of owners until its 1899 purchase by Samuel Untermyer, a New York lawyer who helped found the Federal Reserve System and who led a national movement to boycott Nazi Germany in the ‘30s.

Untermyer was an expert horticulturist (his secret desire was to be the NYC Parks Commissioner) who hired “William Welles Bosworth, an Ecole des Beaux Arts trained architect and landscape designer, to create the greatest gardens in the world.” Today Untermyer Gardens and Park is a Yonkers City Park and, in partnership with Untermyer Gardens Conservancy with input from Marco Polo Stufano, 43 of the original 150 acres are being restored to Samuel Untermyer’s plan.

We will enjoy a guided tour of the gardens as muses from an ancient past serenade us. We’ll see an Indo-Persian Walled Garden created as “Paradise on Earth” with Biblical elements such as a roofless Greek Temple of the Sky with Corinthian columns, an amphitheatre, four waterways and garden beds; the Vista Steps where 2,000 year-old monolithic marble columns frame views of the Hudson and Palisades; two terraced Color Gardens and ruins of a gatehouse and columns of a rose-covered pergola; “a stupendous rocky fantasy” topped with the Temple of Love that overlooks the Hudson; and a recently uncovered rock garden sliced by a stream with bridges.

Come join us on this special, exciting trip.

DATE: Wednesday, September 3, 2014 Bus leaves arboretum at 8:00 SHARP and returns approximately 6:30pm.
COST: $130/members, $150/non-members (includes bus, all garden admissions, guided tours, Flamenco concert, buffet luncheon)
REGISTER HERE: www.arboretumfriends.org/Events (Scroll down to date)
1.25 APLD CEUs available

All properties have rolling terrain with varying paths to walk on such as stone steps, loose gravel, mulch, soil, bark ships, rolling lawn. Please wear sturdy, secure shoes. NO SANDALS OR HEELS. Nothing is handi-capped accessible. Prepare to do some walking.

Here's what people are saying about our tours:

“I really enjoyed our trip over Tuesday and Wednesday! My head is spinning, and my mind is full of all the beautiful things that I saw and experienced during our tour. It was relaxing at the same time. You planned everything so well. It was lovely to travel with the Frelinghuysen. Thank you for all that you do!” – Rosina VS

“The planning of the trip was excellent: each selected destination topped the previous stop. The pacing was perfect: there was exactly enough time to take in the beauty each location had to offer and they were different enough from each other to keep it interesting. The enthusiastic docents, the humorous bus driver, the planned meals all made the this trip even more enjoyable. Not only would I recommend this trip to my friends, I plan to both come on another one you’ll offer soon and I also plan to return to the places to which you introduced me. Thank you for a lovely time, we all had a blast!” – Inge P


Register now. Bus seats are limited!

Caramoor Center for Music: www.caramoor.org/
Untermyer Gardens: www.untermyergardens.org/

....................
More pleasures articles

Print this story: Printer-friendly page

published June 10, 2014

Photos to enlarge


Entrance to Caramoor, photo courtesy of Caramoor


Formal garden. Photo courtesy of Caramoor


Rosen House at Caramoor. H. Maizel photo


Caramoor Tennis Pavilion, photo courtesy of Caramoor


Untermyer Gardens, Jessica Norman photo


2,000 year-old Roman columns at Untermyer Gardens, Jessica Norman photo


Water garden at Untermyer Gardens, Jessica Norman photo


Open air amphitheater at Untermyer Gardens, Jessica Norman photo


Untermyer gardens, Jessica Norman photo


Sculpture at Untermyer gardens, Jessica Norman photo

Click Here for Site Map | Privacy Policy | Web site developed by SHiNYMACHiNE web development