Recognized as one of the world's ten best gardens, Innisfree is a powerful icon of mid-twentieth century design. Over 50 years in the making, it is the work of landscape architect Lester Collins with important contributions by his clients, artist and teacher Walter Beck and gardener and heiress Marion Burt Beck.
I visited Innisfree yesterday in Millbrook, New York and at its core, Innisfree is about the individual's experience in nature. Inviting exploration and even contemplation, the sweeping landscape merges the essence of Modernist and Romantic ideas with traditional Chinese and Japanese garden design.
This design form is called a cup garden. It's roots are in ancient chinese paintings and the cup garden draws attention to something rare and at Innisfree the cup garden concept became a stroll from one three dimensional garden picture to another. Cup gardens can be an enframed meadow or a lotus bowl, or a rock covered with lichen and sedums.
Visitors roam freely at Innisfree and I must say that it was in fact, one of the most magical gardens I have ever visited. So close and yet so far - located in Millbrook New York in Dutchess County - I could not stop myself from taking photos and contemplating the words of W. B. Yeats, one of the greatest Irish poets to ever live, expressing the dreamlike state that he wrote about in "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" (1888):
"I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree".
If you are visiting Westchester County or Dutchess County New York, the Gardens at Innisfree are a MUST stop in your travels.
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