The New Jersey State Botanical Garden at Skylands in Ringwood will celebrate 40 years as the state’s official botanical garden on Sunday, Sept. 14.
The celebration, which begins with events at 10 a.m., will include public tours of Skylands Manor, hayrides through the terraces, pumpkin painting and guided garden walks, among other offerings. The event is designed to highlight decades of preservation and community involvement at the site near the New York State border, but the history of Skylands stretches back much further.
More than a century ago, Francis Lynde Stetson assembled the property from pioneer farmlands in the Ramapo Mountains and named it Skylands Farms. A prominent New York lawyer, corporate counsel for J.P. Morgan and president of both the New York State and City Bar Associations in the early 1900s, Stetson built a granite mansion on the property amid more than 30 outbuildings, formal gardens, a working farm and a lawn that served as a nine-hole golf course, according to state records.
He used the site to entertain celebrities, including Grover Cleveland, Andrew Carnegie, Ethel Barrymore and J.P. Morgan. Stetson also brought in Samuel Parsons Jr., protégé of Frederick Law Olmsted, to design the grounds, drainage systems and roads. Parsons later used photographs of Skylands, including Swan Pond, to illustrate his 1915 book, “The Art of Landscape Architecture, Its Development and Its Application to Modern Landscape Gardening.”
In 1922, an investment banker, trustee of the New York Botanical Garden and avid gardener named Clarence McKenzie Lewis purchased Skylands and began transforming it into a botanical showplace. The Stetson mansion was torn down, and the Tudor-style granite manor was built. Lewis hired landscape architects Ferruccio Vitale and Alfred Geiffert to design terraces, reflecting pools and formal gardens.
During the property’s peak, Lewis maintained a staff of more than 60 gardeners to tend a collection of plants from around the world and New Jersey roadsides, according to state records. Many of the trees, including towering copper beeches, and much of the garden layout date to this period.
A tour of the garden at 2 p.m. is one of the planned highlights of the Sept. 14 event, according to garden officials. Children’s games, a plant sale and a gift shop will also be available, as will volunteers for visitors seeking some guidance or information. Parking is free. A separate re-dedication ceremony for invited guests is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 15.
Though it was dedicated as the state’s garden by Gov. Tom Kean in 1985, Skylands has been owned by the state since 1966, when New Jersey officials purchased 1,117 acres in the first use of the state’s Green Acres program. The gardens, sold by Lewis to Shelton College in 1953, had been neglected. But local gardeners and nurseries helped restore Lewis’ plantings, and by the 1970s the gardens were producing 20,000 plants annually for distribution across the state.
The Skylands Association, formed in 1976, advocated for the site’s official recognition, and Governor Kean ultimately approved the designation of the 96 acres around the manor as the state botanical garden. The site today is listed on both the State and National Registers of Historic Places.
The gardens at Skylands are open to the public every day at no cost. Skylands Manor, however, is generally accessible only on select Sundays for guided tours with an admission fee. At other times, the Manor operates under a state lease as a wedding venue and bed-and-breakfast run by a catering company. Volunteers and members continue to maintain the gardens, expand plantings, and organize events and plant sales.
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