Boston Flora

Tag: American Academy Of Arts And Letters

  • Thursday, February 12, 7:00 pm – Gardner Museum Landscape Lecture: Kathryn Gustafson

    The Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Landscape Lecture series continues Thursday, February 12 with Kathryn Gustafson. Gustafson is a partner in both Gustafson Guthrie Nichol in Seattle and Gustafson Porter in London. Her work incorporates the fundamental sculptural and sensual qualities that enhance the human experience of landscape. She is only the third landscape architect to have received the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Gustafson is also an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and a medalist of the French Academy of Architecture. Along with her partners at Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, she received the National Design Award for Landscape Architecture from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

    Landscape Lectures begin at 7 pm in Calderwood Hall. Lectures include Museum admission and require a ticket; tickets can be reserved online, in person at the door, or by phone: 617 278 5156. Museum admission: adults $15, seniors $12, students $5, free for Museum members.  On line tickets may be purchased at www.gardnermuseum.org.

    When a lecture sells out, the Museum will offer a limited number of obstructed view seats the night of the event via a signup sheet at the admissions desk. The signup sheet will become available at the desk at 6 pm. We will make every attempt to seat everyone but cannot guarantee a seat once we are at capacity. Seats will be assigned 5 minutes prior to the lecture time. These obstructed view seats will be free of charge.

  • Saturday, August 8, 1 – 5 pm – Ashintully Gardens Tour

    Discover the peace and tranquility these stunning gardens in Tyringham, Massachusetts, which combine several natural features – including a rushing stream, a rounded knoll, and rising flank meadows – into an ordered arrangement of both formal and informal beauty.

    Fees: FREE.
    Telephone: 413-298-3239
    E-mail: westregion@ttor.org

    Ashintully (Gaelic meaning “on the brow of the hill”) was the name given to the original 1,000-acre estate assembled in the early 20th century by Egyptologist and two-time state representative, Robb de Peyster Tytus from three farms in Tyringham and additional land in Otis.

    On a hill overlooking the southern end of Tyringham Valley, Tytus built between 1910-1912 a white, Georgian-style mansion which came to be known as the Marble Palace. Its main façade featured four Doric columns and was spanned by thirteen window bays; its interior comprised thirty-five rooms, ten baths, and fifteen fireplaces (the Marble Palace was destroyed by fire on April 20, 1952; only the front terrace, foundation, and four Doric columns remain today). In 1913, Tytus died at Saranac Lake, New York, leaving his wife, Grace, and two daughters, Mildred and Victoria. One year later, Mrs. Tytus married John S. McLennan, a Canadian senator, newspaper owner, and historian. She gave birth in 1915 to one child, John Jr., before subsequently being divorced.

    In 1937, John McLennan (Jr.) acquired the estate, where he had spent all his childhood summers. He later moved into the farmhouse at the bottom of the hill, where he lived the rest of his life, renovating the nearby barn into a music studio. John McLennan became an accomplished composer of contemporary music, including chamber and orchestral music and pieces for piano and organ, and, in 1985, won an American Academy of Arts and Letters music award. John McLennan created, over the course of thirty years, Ashintully Gardens.

    The gardens blend several natural features – a rushing stream, native deciduous trees, a rounded knoll, and rising flanking meadows – into an ordered arrangement with both formal and informal beauty. Garden features include the Fountain Pond, Pine Park, Rams Head Terrace, Bowling Green, Regency Bridge, and Trellis Triptych. Urns, columns, and statuary ornament the garden, while foot bridges, foot paths, stone stairs, and grassy terraces connect various parts of the garden. In 1997, Ashintully Gardens received the H. Hollis Hunnewell Medal, established in 1870 by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society to recognize gardens of country residences embellished with rare and desirable ornamental trees and shrubs.