The Garden Dialogues program began five years ago at Manatuck, the Stonington, Connecticut home of The Cultural Landscape Foundation Board Member Barbara Dixon and her husband Chris, inspired by a casual conversation between Dixon and her landscape architect Douglas Reed, a founding TCLF Board Member, as they walked the property. The September 17 Dialogue at Manatuck will anchor a rich exploration of the cultural and environmental landscape of Stonington through the lens of an up-close and intimate tour along the town’s North Main street corridor.

At the Dixon estate, with its unprecedented panoramic views of Stonington’s natural land form and breathtaking pastoral coastal views that connect farm to ocean, attendees will first hear about the town’s natural and cultural history from a renowned local historian. Next, Reed and the Dixons will elaborate on their on-going twenty-year collaboration, and the story of the project to open up the landscape and reconnect it with the earlier historic farmland.

A short walk through the inner fields, meadows, woodlands and wetlands that parallel North Main street will lead to the historic Stone Acre Farm property (picture below courtesy of www.oldhouseonline.com), one of the state’s oldest farms. Attendees will be treated to lunch and a talk about the future of Stone Acres Farm, which will become a “Farm to Community Table” campus for sustainable living and practices conceived through a deep and abiding commitment to connecting the local community to its local, natural and human resources.

The final stop is a mid-century Modernist residence once owned by John Lincoln, an architect and co-inventor of the Quonset and former chair of the Rhode Island School of Design’s architecture department. Here Joeb Moore, another TCLF Board Member, and Reed will present the recent major renovations and on-going transformations of the property and house.

Thanks to the generosity of our hosts and sponsors, tickets for Garden Dialogues are tax deductible and proceeds benefit the educational programs of The Cultural Landscape Foundation.  $300.  Register online at http://www.tclf.org.