Boston Flora

Tag: The Wall Street Journal

  • Thursday, March 11, 6:30 pm – Harbor Hill & Beacon Towers: Long Island “Gold Coast” Mansions and the Women Who Created Them, Online

    Join architecture historian and lecturer Gary Lawrance and the Friends of Morven on March 11 at 6:30 online on a trip to the “Gold Coast” of 1920’s Long Island to meet Katherine Duer, wife of Silver heir Clarence Mackay and her fabulous over 60 room Harbor Hill mansion once located at Roslyn. Mrs. Mackay not only managed the home when completed, but also oversaw the planning with “Gilded Age”, architect Stanford White and during Harbor Hill’s construction. We will also meet Alva Vanderbilt Belmont. Known as a force to be reckoned with, Alva Erskin Smith first married a Vanderbilt and built one of the most dazzling mansions on New York’s Fifth Avenue, then the equally splendid summer cottage, “Marble House” at Newport, Rhode Island. With her second husband Oliver Hazard Belmont she enlarged his Newport mansion and then a home at East Meadow, Long Island. After his passing Mrs. Belmont built a Castle on the Long Island Sound at Sands Point, Long Island, that many believe was used by Author F. Scott Fitzgerald as the inspiration for the magnificent mansion of Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”. It was at this house that Mrs. Belmont held suffragist women’s events and reigned over her version of a Scottish Castle. The evening will also provide a brief look at other estates and an aerial tour, circa 1926, to give an idea of the extensiveness of the great estates that were once world famous as the land of elegance, splendor and lavishness. This evening’s lecture sponsored by Heidi A. Hartmann of Coldwell Banker Princeton.

    $18 for Friends of Morven, $25 for the public. Register HERE.

    Architect, Author, and Historian Gary Lawrance is an architect from Stony Brook, New York. His firm, Lawrance Architectural Presentations, provides design presentations, architectural models, digital renderings, and design development services to architects, landscape architects and interior designers. Mr. Lawrance has an extensive background in the history of Gilded Age architecture, landscapes, and society, and co-authored the bestselling book, Houses of the Hamptons 1880-1930 with Anne Surchin (Acanthus Press 2007, Revised 3rd Printing 2013).

    Mr. Lawrance’s work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Hamptons Cottages & Gardens, Newsday, New York Social Diary, Southampton Press, and more. Mr. Lawrance has written for Architectural Digest, Dan’s Papers, Quest magazine, and his two blogs, Mansions of the Gilded Age and Houses of the Hamptons in addition to founding and contributing to the two very successful Facebook groups, Mansions of the Gilded Age & The Gilded Age Society with over 160,000 members combined. Mr. Lawrance also manages two equally popular Instagram accounts, Mansions of the Gilded Age & The Gilded Age Society.

  • Wednesday, February 4, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Humans and Wildlife: The New Imbalance

    Jim Sterba, author of Nature Wars, will give a free talk at the Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway in Cambridge, on Wednesday, February 4, from 7 – 8:30, sponsored by Grow Native Massachusetts.

    By the late 19th century, North American forests and wildlife were in dire straits. For nearly 400 years, arriving Europeans had removed trees and killed off wild birds and animals to the point that a few enlightened leaders sounded the alarm, and the conservation movement was born. Three slow but remarkable transformations followed. Forests reclaimed huge swaths of abandoned cropland. Many threatened wildlife populations, restocked in refuges and protected, slowly grew back to health. Then, people moved out of cities after World War II, creating a mosaic of suburban, exurban and rural sprawl where family farms once thrived.

    Now, this new habitat is filled with people who want to leave nature alone, and many wildlife populations are proliferating out of balance. We have mounting community conflicts over what to do, or not to do, about deer, beavers, Canada Geese, and other species. As the dominant player in our ecosystems, it is time for us to overcome our reluctance and embrace our stewardship role.

    Jim Sterba is an internationally recognized author and correspondent who has reported for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal for more than four decades. His book, Nature Wars, published in 2012, has earned critical acclaim and catalyzed an important national conversation about wildlife management.