Blue & White Garden

Blue and White Garden. . , The Blue and White Garden was also called the “Intimate Garden” by Mary Clark Thompson. Constructed in 1912, it was the first of three garden rooms designed by Mary Clark Thompson’s landscape architect John Handrahan and was built adjacent to the mansion’s veranda. The garden contained only blue and white annuals and long-blooming perennials. The Blue and White Garden is 40 feet by 60 feet and has a curved aluminum trellis. The garden features a marble pavilion; classical statues; marble walkways; stone benches, and a fountain pool, graced by water sprites. Much of the garden’s original architectural elements can still be seen here today. , John Handrahan, Mary Clark Thompson’s landscape architect, planted 15 species of flowers in this garden. Among the blue flowers were gentian, salvia, lobelia, larkspur, and delphinium. Among the whites were sweet alyssum, campanula, phlox, hyacinth, agapanthus, and two types of lilies. , This garden has also been referred to as the Marble Garden and Little Garden. , The tile roof of the pavilion, seen in this early 20th-century photograph, was restored in 1996. The pavilion and the trellis were restored in 1998 as well as the wrought-iron scrollwork entrance gates, which were modeled after gates in a Roman garden. , Historic photographs similar to this one provided the basis for replicating the garden’s urns and statues and documented the shape of the beds and plant materials.