Bellefield

By the entrance to the FDR house, Springwood in Hyde Park stands Bellefield, described on the Cultural Landscape Foundation site as follows:

The headquarters for the National Park Service in Hyde Park, was the former home of Thomas and Sarah Newbold, a cousin of Beatrix Farrand. Farrand was hired in 1912 to design the landscape, a series of three gardens descending from the elegant 18th century house, each enclosed by hemlock hedging and traditional native stone walls. The widest section nearest to the house had a large elm tree (now gone), while the other two had long, narrow flower borders. Other areas included a rose garden, a lilac and fruit-tree allée, a boxwood parterre, and a kitchen garden. Farrand also designed several gates with distinctive ornamental embellishments. The family donated the property to the National Park Service in 1976 and the garden fell into disrepair. In the 1990s a volunteer group was formed to restore the gardens. Although the bones of the garden were still in place, most of the plantings, as well as the original planting plans, had long since disappeared. Necessary repairs and replacements were made to the gates and other features using Farrand’s original sketches, while plant selections were made following a nearby Farrand garden designed around the same time. The gardens now are open to the public.

Two titans

These two busts, one of Sir Winston Churchill and the other of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) stand facing each other on the grounds of the FDR house, Springwood in Hyde Park, NY.

They’re by Oscar Nemon (born Neumann). At least the Churchill bust is by Nemon (I’m not entirely sure who was the sculptor for the FDR bust) and is described on his estate’s website as follows:

A recent bronze cast by the Nemon Estate was the magnificent bust of Sir Winston Churchill which stands opposite the bust President Franklin Roosevelt at the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, Hyde Park, New York.

The bust of Churchill was unveiled by his granddaughter Edwina Sandys (herself an artist and sculptor) and the sculptor’s daughter Aurelia Young on June 15 2007 during a conference whose theme was ‘Roosevelt & Churchill: The Legacy of Two Statesmen’.

Birthday boy

Yesterday was my birthday and we went out to dinner and a fine performance of “Man of La Mancha” at the Westchester Broadway Theater.

My wife had earlier asked me to scan this old picture so that she could post it on Facebook and of course I neglected to do it. So on our return from the festivities I fired up the old scanner.

I have no memory of this picture being taken and I have no idea who took it – clearly it wasn’t me. I don’t even know how old I was. I have no recollection of my parents having a camera. Nor do I remember any of their friends having one. So I suspect that this was a “professional” photographer. I say “professional”, because of the sloppy work: my hair’s a mess (mind you it usually still is) and the “one collar in one collar out” seems to me to be something that a true professional would have noticed.

Although I’ve put on quite a bit of weight since then and now wear spectacles, I still have the hair and I’m told that the smile is still the same. Judge for yourself – below a recent picture taken outdoors at The Depot restaurant in Cold Spring. My wife also posted this one, which she took with her iPhone 5s.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Although you wouldn’t think it from the number of flower pictures I’ve been posting of late I don’t really like flowers all that much. While I don’t mind looking at them I’m not a devoted gardener – that’s my wife. However, I’ve always loved bluebells. They grow wild in the woods where I grew up and I was always fascinated by the carpets of blue that you would see at certain times of the year. So when I bumped into this cluster of bluebells at the NY Botanical Gardens I had to take a picture.

When I looked at it later the first thing I saw was the brown leaves. Now I could say this this was deliberate. That the whole pictures is about transience and even though you see the flowers in their full spring glory now, autumn is just around the corner. But this would be a load of nonsense. The fact is that in my enthusiasm to take the picture I just didn’t see them – not at all! The eye (and the human brain) is an amazing instrument capable of shutting out things you don’t expect to see. This just underscores the need to look really hard when you take a picture so as to see any distracting elements.

You may think I’m crazy not seeing the leaves, but I’ll refer you to a fascinating book called “The Invisible Gorilla. How our intuitions deceive us“.