The Secret Garden

It seems I'm all about secrets lately. Last week I wrote about a hidden trail in the Salem woods and how Connecticut's "average" places can be pretty amazing. This week's post is about a very different sort of lesser-known attraction in the opposite corner of the state, and there's nothing average about it.

The Hollister House Garden in Washington is a lovely surprise in a region of Connecticut that's already renowned for lovely surprises. Inspired by classic English gardens, George Schoellkopf, then a dealer of early American antiques and folk art, began in 1979 to transform the land around his 18th-century country house. Out of a rugged slope once used for agriculture, he carved an exquisite terraced garden, the evolution of which continues today.

Wandering between bright and fragrant flowers, you're led along paths that twist and turn and divide. Every choice reveals a different view, whether it's another path, lined with blooms; an intimate nook, where a chair awaits; or a grand vista that gives you a greater sense of the garden's scope. Through archways and hedges, you glimpse perfectly situated benches and expertly laid out plantings. The garden's different sections, whose names ("herb garden," "walled garden," "sunken terrace") hint at their appeal, blend seamlessly with the natural landscape that surrounds them. A brook flows throughout the property, forming a little waterfall in one secluded spot and, elsewhere, a calm surface to stroll or sit beside and stare out at the old stone walls climbing the hill in the distance.

Anchoring the garden is the Gideon Hollister Homestead, built around 1770 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2010. Hollister was a prominent resident of Washington, a soldier and farmer who also operated a sawmill and trading post on this land. The simple farmhouse he built remains largely unchanged to this day. And while most of the attention paid to the Hollister House Garden goes, rightfully, to the garden itself, what struck me was the way the landscape - both what grows naturally and what has been carefully planted - enhances the sense of the home's history. While a garden of this type would not have been found here in Gideon Hollister's day, its mix of formal and informal elements nonetheless creates an atmosphere that complements and magnifies the charm of the house and the land. (This is what you might call the essential philosophy of the Litchfield Hills: respect and preserve the past, and add to it only what makes it even prettier.)

Today, Holister House is still owned by George Schoellkopf (who, with his partner, lives here part-time) as well as by a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of the property. The garden is open to the public (and almost free; there's a $5 suggested donation) on Fridays and Saturdays from May through October, and for groups by appointment. It also occasionally serves as a spectacular setting for special events. (See the Hollister House Garden website for details.)

I don't always tell readers of this bog to run out and experience some sight or attraction right now, but this time I'm going to strongly encourage you get up to Litchfield County and see this garden before it closes for the season. There are only so many weekends in a summer, and you will not regret spending part of one of them here.

Washington Green Historic District

CAFE ON THE GREEN (R) AND WASHINGTON GREEN POST OFFICE (L)

Welcome to the Washington Green section of the town of Washington, where the post office and what just might be the only restaurant share a building. You're probably familiar with Washington, even if you've never heard of it; its town center, called Washington Depot (as well as other areas of this and nearby towns) served as inspiration for the fictional Stars Hollow in the TV show Gilmore Girls. I have never seen so much as one minute of one episode of Gilmore Girls, yet I'm well aware that for many people across the country and beyond, this little slice of Litchfield County is Connecticut.

Washington Depot is relatively busy; it, like New Preston, is a sweet, old-fashioned commercial center for the region. (My favorite place to visit in Washington Depot is the Hickory Stick Bookshop, and I admit that's as much for it's rounded brick building as for the books inside.)

Washington Green, on the other hand, is quieter. The library is here, and the aforementioned post office, as well as the private Gunnery School, established in 1850. The green itself is unusual - there are no memorials or monuments here, and no distinct grassy rectangle or oblong. Instead, this town green resembles a series of lawns and pathways, bisected by local roads and decorated with impressive 18th- and 19th-century buildings (plus a few newer additions.)

The visual effect is pure New England, from the perfectly pointed steeple of the First Congregational Church to the surrounding buildings which are almost all painted white, as if to ensure year-round picture-book status. (This didn't happen by accident - if you're interested in how Washington Green came to look so pristine, and how it stays that way, peruse the website of the Washington Green Society.) This part of town is frequented by locals more than tourists - which, of course, is what makes it worth visiting, even if you're only passing through to see how reality stacks up to TV.

WASHINGTON CLUB HALL

FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH MEETING HOUSE, 1801

...AND HERE IS THE STEEPLE...

JUDEA PARISH HOUSE

GUNN HISTORICAL MUSEUM (WILLIS HOUSE, 1781)

GUNN MEMORIAL LIBRARY, 1908

New Preston

I'll say two things about New Preston. One, it is nothing like regular old Preston, two hours to the east. Well, both are rural, but that's about it. (Preston was called New Preston at first too, the original Preston being in England. But luckily for this New Preston, they dropped the "New." If they hadn't I guess this one would have had to be Newer Preston, or else they would have been forced to come up with something else altogether.)

Two, I got the idea to come here because I read about celebrities shopping here on a gossip blog. What can I say, sometimes good ideas come from strange and slightly shameful places. Not that very many of my ideas are inspired by that particular source. Just wanting to go to New Preston.

And then as it happened I found other people who also wanted to go to New Preston! No doubt their interest originated someplace far less silly. So I met Elizabeth and Sarah and Sarah's husband Sean in this adorable little downtown area which reminded me of a smaller Chester.

They both have short curved streets and sudden hills, and a sense of water like an unseen living being right nearby. They also share a settled, complacent feel, and a rather rare trait: Everything is exquisite, yet everyone is pleasant. Those don't often coincide, so when they do, it's worth pointing out.

I do like taking pictures of candy. The other day I was reading a bunch of letters to and from Nathan Hale - no, I have a point, really - and there was one from his friend Ebenezer Williams, who was living in Wethersfield while Nathan was teaching school in New London. Ebenezer, who would have been about 19 at the time, wrote to Nathan, 

"I am persuaded that, were my lot to have fallen in some place where I should have been acquainted with one & only one of our Wethersfield Ladies, I must & should have paid my addresses to her, but variety is my protection. And happy it is that Variety, or any thing else can protect me. For, in my present situation, I should esteem it the greatest of misfortunes to be captivated with the charms of any particular Lady." 

And that's also true of candy. If you're faced with just chocolate, or just sour peaches, or just a lollipop the size of your head, you want it. But if you're surrounded by all the candy, it's somehow okay just to look at it, and you don't really need to eat any.

Anyway.

New Preston sits on the eastern and southern shores of Lake Waramaug. I'm a coast person, and secondarily a river person. I am emphatically not a lake person. (These are very different things. I'm sure whole histories of the United States could be written that explain everything not through the differences between North and South, or West and East, or City and Country, but those between favored bodies of water. For real. I think.) However, driving from the south to the north shore of Lake Waramaug, I had to pause (not literally, that would have been bad) and seriously consider the lake person point of view.

But I'll write about that on Friday.