Landscape Improvements, 1913-1918


The Coes hired the Boston firm of Guy Lowell and A.R. Sargent to develop the landscaping James Greenleaf had begun. Andrew Robeson Sargent, who had been a friend of the family for a number of years,introduced Lowell to the Coes.Between 1913 and 1918, Sargent designed some of Planting

The trees arrive at the
port of Oyster Bay
Fields' most distinctive features, notably the Blue Pool Garden and the exterior of the Tea House, the North Border and the allèe south of the Tea House. Shortly before the Blue Pool Garden was completed, A.R. Sargent passed away.

Lowell and Sargent were also responsible for overseeing the moving and transplanting of the Fairhaven Beech in 1915. The Fairhaven Beech is a purple beech tree that was brought from Mai Rogers Coe’s childhood home in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. After her father's death, the house was due to be razed and the land subdivided. Mai wished to save two large purple beeches she played under as a youngster and bring them to Planting Fields. The large trees were excellent specimens and would give the young estate the look of a mature landscape.

In an enormous tree-moving effort, the two beeches were transported across Long Island sound in the middle of winter and arrived at the port of Oyster Bay. At the Coes’ expense, roads were widened and telephone and electrical wires temporarily removed to make way for the tremendous beeches with root balls thirty feet in diameter. Only one of the two trees survived the replanting, and it remains today the signature tree of Planting Fields.

The Coes hired the prominent architectural firm of Walker and Gillette of New York to design several outbuildings on the property that complemented the lamay brick construction of the Byrne mansion including the Hay Barn, Superintendent's House, and Laundry. A. Stewart Walker and Leon Gillette would later design Coe Hall.


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Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park and Coe Hall
1395 Planting Fields Road Oyster Bay, NY 11771 (516) 922-9200

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