PRESERVATION: Naumkeag is Same As It Ever Was

 

After driving up the curved, tree-lined road, passing the cemetery, the pasture, and finally the potting shed, Will Garrison brings his car to a slow stop in front of the brown-shingled barn. It’s the second-largest structure at Naumkeag, the forty-eight-acre estate in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, which served as the summer home to the illustrious Choate family for more than fifty years. The largest building on the property is the one sitting majestically on the nearby hill, the house itself: a geometric jewel designed in the late nineteenth century by McKim, Mead, and White.

 

Now out of the car and up the hill, Garrison opens the lower-level door at the side entrance of the house and punches in the security code to stave off the alarm. It’s early February, and the house is dark, quiet, and bitterly cold—a different atmosphere entirely from the one visitors experience during the warm weeks between Memorial and Columbus days, when the landmark property is open to the public. 

 

“As estates go, it’s relatively modest,” says Garrison as he strides across the about-to-be-renovated kitchen in the basement of Naumkeag. And it’s true: compared to some of the Gilded Age cottages in nearby Lenox, Massachusetts, or ocean-side mansions in Newport, Rhode Island, the country residence in Stockbridge doesn’t stand out for its opulence. But Naumkeag (a Native American term for “haven of peace”) is striking all the same—not only for its forty-four-room interior grandeur but also for its world-famous landscaping designed by Fletcher Steele.

 

“When visitors come, they stroll the gardens and take the tour and feel that they could live here,” Garrison continues. “It’s big, but it doesn’t seem austere.”

 

After inspecting the kitchen, which is about to be converted into the visitor welcoming area and gift shop, Garrison takes a quick sweep through the house—as he does frequently during the off-season—to make sure everything is intact. Some of the floors are bare, since carpets have been rolled into upstairs storage, and the furniture is covered with dust-sheets. “We have the original dust-sheets, but they’re artifacts,” Garrison says. “So we can’t use those.”

 

Garrison is soft-spoken, with a serious, scholarly reserve that belies his youthful appearance. For eight years, he has served as historic resources manager for the western region of the Trustees of Reservations, which owns Naumkeag as well as ninety-eight other properties of natural, historic, and cultural significance in Massachusetts. In this broad role—which includes serving as curator and researcher as well as working with guides, property managers, and volunteers in the Berkshires and in the Pioneer Valley—he constantly straddles two worlds: then and now.

 

To Garrison, the son of a history teacher, this is a perfectly natural balance. “I grew up in a household in which American history permeated every meal,” he says. Back at the Mission House on Stockbridge’s Main Street, settled at his desk, Garrison points to a framed black-and-white photo of a young boy and two men in a canoe. “This is me,” he says, indicating the boy, “and that’s my dad.”

 

The man standing behind them—an unsmiling, imposing-looking figure holding a paddle—is Abraham Ribicoff, a Connecticut senator. Garrison explains that the long-ago canoe outing was part of a lobbying effort; his father wanted to have the Shepaug declared a wild and scenic river in order to protect it from a dam proposed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. While the effort, Garrison says, was successful, the river is still not, in fact, declared wild and scenic, but efforts to protect it remain ongoing.  

 

Years ago, when he was a student in the SUNY College at Oneonta Cooperstown Graduate Program, Garrison lived in the apartment over the barn at Naumkeag that had once housed the Choate family chauffeur during the summer. At the time, he was an intern with the Trustees of Reservations, working at the Colonel John Ashley House in nearby Sheffield, Massachusetts. 

 

History, as they say, repeats itself—and, of all people, Garrison should know. After majoring in American studies in college, securing his graduate degree in history museum studies, and working in historic settings in Saratoga, New York City, and Deerfield, Massachusetts, he landed once again, in 2001, at the Trustees of Reservations, responsible now for managing the historic resources of all twenty-three properties in the western region, including Naumkeag. “The Trustees have an overall mission I really love,” he says. “It’s important to preserve history and preserve the land. The whole point,” he adds passionately, “is to engage the public.”

 

Naumkeag, which was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2007, attracts about 11,000 visitors each year. Among them are Quebec residents Jackie Newell and her husband, Jean-Pierre Joutel, who were urged by friends last summer to tour the property. “Our friends … were bowled over by it,” Newell says. “They said we had to come here.”

 

Much as Garrison adores his job, it’s not without challenges—and Naumkeag is the source of a few in particular. When Mabel Choate (who inherited the house from her parents, Joseph and Caroline) died in 1958, leaving the entire estate to the Trustees, she stipulated that the perfectly intact house and gardens be preserved. And, to the amazement of many visitors, it is: a can of flea powder for dogs still sits atop a refrigerator in the butler’s pantry, just as it has for over fifty years, and upstairs cabinets are filled with Mabel Choate’s linens and toiletries. But the passage of time naturally takes its toll on materials and plants. Wallpaper fades. Draperies tear. Trees die. The question Garrison constantly asks himself is: Should we preserve or replace?

 

When the original tin ceiling in the formal dining room began to oxidize, dropping specks of rust onto the mahogany table, Garrison debated the issue with colleagues. “Do you keep it because it’s original, or do you instead put up a copy?” Ultimately, they decided to create an exact reproduction of the tin ceiling—but not without calling in highly specialized experts and working with them to fine-tune each seemingly small detail.

 

The Trustees elected to take the same approach with chintz drapes in one of the bedrooms. “They were installed in the thirties and were just shattered,” Garrison says. “They looked terrible.” He considered leaving them there and explaining the situation to tour groups—“Visitors really understand,” he admits—but in the end decided it would be better to have them replaced.

 

Remarkably, the new chintz was made at the same factory in England that had produced the original drapes more than seventy years prior. “That was quite a major project,” he says.

 

Barbara Dowling, the historic site administrator for the western region of the Trustees, says the group has faced the same dilemma with the stunning, internationally renowned gardens. Some of what Mabel Choate planted, presumably under the direction of Fletcher Steele, are actually invasive species. The issue, then, is whether it’s better to leave them in place or to remove them entirely.

“We’re always questioning what needs to be done and how it can be done,” Dowling explains. “Our goal is to [make everything work] ecologically, historically, scenically, and for people’s enjoyment. When you put those goals together, one of them has to go a little bit.”

 

The gardens at Naumkeag are especially beautiful. Choate was an avid horticulturist and worked hand-in-glove with Steele to create a series of separate, intricately planned outdoor spaces that have beckoned to generations of adults and children alike. (The famous Blue Steps are reportedly the second-most photographed steps in the world; only the steps in Rome’s Piazza di Spagna are

captured more frequently on film.)

 

Dowling says the Naumkeag landscaping is about much more than flowers. “It’s intertwined ideas, all merged together in interesting ways, and almost whimsical,” she says. “Kids really get a kick out of it.” Two summers ago, the Trustees began offering a special program for children called Look Closely with Kipper, in which they are presented with a backpack full of materials that lead them on an outdoor scavenger hunt.

In his curator role, Garrison is responsible for managing the tens of thousands of artifacts found at the Naumkeag estate (as well as countless others at other Trustees properties). He’s reluctant to specify just how many there are at Naumkeag—not because he’s unfamiliar with the entire inventory, but because he points out it’s actually difficult to cite an actual number.

 

“That’s the dirty little secret of the history house business,” he says. “How do you count a tea set? Is it one thing or several things?”

 

Among the many household treasures—which include two portraits by John Singer Sargent, a circa-1700 Hadley chest, and an impressive collection of Chinese export porcelain—Garrison cites three of his personal favorites. One is a portrait bust created by Augustus Saint-Gaudens of Ruloff Choate, one of Mabel’s brothers, who died during his freshman year at Harvard—“a beautiful sculpture,” Garrison says.

 

Another is a collection of items found in a middle bedroom known as “Effie’s Room.” What Garrison appreciates most is the “eclecticism” of it. “Mrs. Choate put up flattened and framed hat boxes, next to pieces she acquired in India, next to the Shaker rocking chair,” he says. “It all works together so well, plus then you turn, and you get the beautiful views [from the window].”

 

Garrison’s third choice is an item he holds especially dear: a ninety-eight-year-old piece of cake from Joseph and Caroline’s fiftieth anniversary celebration. The 1911 gala drew five hundred guests as well as congratulatory telegrams from President William Howard Taft and King George V.

 

The gifts were so lavish and valuable that security guards were hired to stand watch over them. (“Such a display of gold has never before been seen in Berkshire,” proclaimed a Springfield, Massachusetts, newspaper that chronicled the event.) Today, the cake itself is stored in an original cardboard box, out of public view. “It doesn’t look very edible,” Garrison admits. “Even the mice have left it alone."

“I would have liked to have been a guest on that day,” Garrison continues. In reality, though, he has perhaps an even better option: a long glimpse into the glittering moments of the past from a fresh, firm foothold in the present. [JULY 2009]

 

Christine Hensel Triantos is a freelance writer in Richmond, Mass.

 

THE GOODS

Naumkeag

Prospect Hill Road

Stockbridge, Mass.

www.thetrustees.org/pages/335_naumkeag.cfm

 

The Trustees of Reservations

Western Regional Office

The Mission House

1 Sergeant St.

Stockbridge, Mass.

www.thetrustees.org