The Great Lawn / Morven Museum & Garden

The Great Lawn, also, Morven Museum and Garden. . , The Great Lawn , By the time Commodore Robert F. Stockton (1795-1866) began to improve Morven in the 1850s, a picturesque, "natural" landscape style was the mode. The Commodore's landscaping therefore featured a front lawn with irregularly placed trees and a small hillock in front of the house. The flowers and shrubs planted here now are based on 19th-century descriptions and photographs, including the memory of one Stockton cousin who recalled a footpath divided from the carriage drive by a grass strip and "round beds of daylilies planted at intervals…[which] made the front of the house more interesting by affording one the chance to jump over them all in succession instead of walking on the path.", Morven Museum and Garden , Morven Construction Timeline: , Original structure built c. 1757, burned 1758, rebuilt 1760s. Major additions and alterations in 1788, 1790s, 1850s, and 1947. Built as a home for Richard Stockton, signer of the Declaration of Independence, who resided here until 1781. Served as the New Jersey Governor's Mansion from 1954-1982., Listed in the New Jersey Register of Historic Places: January 25, 1971 , Designated a National Historic Landmark: July 17, 1971.