Northshore Magazine

Restoration Guidelines for the Treatment of Cultural Landscapes, the committee came up with a comprehensive list of recommendations that would bring the garden back to its original footprint and ensure its future be bound to its past. Significant changes included taking down two towering gumdrop-shaped and sheared Taxus shrubs—the removal of May/June 2014 nshoremag.com 53 "The biggest surprise," notes Block referring to the subcommittee's research, "was finding out that Chandler didn't play as large a role in the [landscape's design] as originally thought." Bancroft Stevens and Cunningham truly led the charge when it came to the grounds—a rare achievement for women at the time. Referring to the National Park Service photograph by doug levy is historically accurate for an estate like Coolidge-Stevens to have had a cutting garden. "It has been great for engage- ment," notes superintendent Kevin Block, "and for getting people onto the prop- erty." From mid-July until early October, the small staff and multiple volunteers sell freshly cut bouquets from "Flower Field" to weekend visitors. "This year we will be opening the per- ennial garden for the first time—it is fully restored and planted now," says Block. "It will be the first time its beauty can really be enjoyed like it used to be." Established in 1907, the perennial gar- den lies directly behind the main house and was originally conceived by Helen Stevens Coolidge's sister, Gertrude Kun- hardt, who hired an early 20th-century garden designer and MIT graduate named Louisa Bancroft Stevens. With help from garden consultant El- len Painter Cunningham, the two proved the primary force behind the garden, which, after more than a century, contin- ues to serve as a fine example of a garden's complement to the house—a popular design element of the Country Place Era. Later, in 1914, the estate was trans- formed by preservation architect Joseph Chandler, who is credited with imbuing the property with an architectural aesthetic belonging to the Colonial Revival period. Just shy of a century later, a team of Trustees volunteers began digging in archives (before breaking ground in the garden) for clues on how to restore the estate's beloved but overgrown perennial garden. The Perennial Garden Subcom- mittee—six current and past members of The Stevens-Coolidge Place Committee, as well as two representatives from local garden clubs, including North Andover Garden Club where Mrs. Coolidge was a founding member—scoured the region for resources that would inform their un- dertaking. They found and read diaries, combed through correspondence, stud- ied photos, examined garden plans, and "interpreted how the designers viewed the landscape." Green Thumb Kevin Block serves as the property superintendent. KJ_NS MayJun 14 Coolidge.indd 53 3/27/14 4:42 PM

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