Wistariahurst Museum

For more photos of the formal gardens at Wistariahurst, please click here.

Every Tuesday Morning from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.- Join the Wistariahurst Gardeners starting Tuesday, April 6th. No experience necessary! Work gloves and tools will be provided. Restoration plans of the Wistariahurst Gardens have begun. The gardens and landscape tell an important part of the historical and cultural story at Wistariahurst. The restoration project will not only improve the grounds but also give volunteers the opportunity to work with Master Gardeners to learn more about their own garden projects. The Holyoke Wistariahurst Gardeners' primary goal is education and enjoyment of gardening.

The Holyoke Water Power Company had just finished clearing house lots when the Skinner family moved to Holyoke in 1874.  Photographs from 1875 show the house in a barren setting, surrounded sparsely by few homes and even fewer trees.  In the following decades, the Skinner Family would transform the empty lot into a landscape of trees and lawn described as a "handsome park" and considered by many to be "one of the show places of Holyoke."

William Skinner and his wife Sarah maintained Wistariahurst as a fashionable Second Empire residence; Sarah, especially, took great pleasure in her property.  Her letters and diaries are filled with references to plantings and trees.  During her lifetime, the grounds at Wistariahurst were for the most part planted with a variety of trees, especially maple, peach, pear and apple.  It is she who had the wisteria vine planted along the house and trained carefully during the 1880s.  The vine would eventually become the hallmark of the fine home and by 1901, the name Wistariahurst appears on Sarah Skinner's private stationary.  By this time, the vines were widely acclaimed for their size and beauty.  Their blooms were reported in local papers and many came to view them with great admiration.

"Oh, you should see my Wisteria-It is beautiful today and the place is rightly named…Father has just come up from the mill and is sitting out on the piazza taking in the perfume of the flowers which he seems to appreciate."

-Sarah Skinner in a letter to Belle Skinner, May 1901.

Photograph by John Waitling

Belle Skinner inherited her mother's love of gardening and followed her example of directing everything that occurred on the grounds.  However, her vision of what the gardens should look like differed greatly.  While her mother favored groves of trees and shrubs, Belle delighted in formally laid out perennial gardens and elegant statuary.

In 1909, Belle hired florists Wadley and Smythe of New York City to plan a formal perennial garden.  The detailed plan included the name and location of each planting.  This was the first formally designed garden at Wistariahurst and its installation heralded a great change for the estate's landscape.  The beds marked by Wadley and Smythe would designate the location of future perennial and rose beds.

In 1914, after the construction of the Music Room Addition, Belle Skinner hired Boston Landscape Architect, Herbert Kellaway to design a rose garden. His work at Wistariahurst focused on the same site as the 1909 Wadley and Smythe garden and included provisions for a watering system.

Photograph by John Waitling

While Belle relied on the services of professionals, she continued to work on plans for the landscape herself.  Notes written in her hand detail the specie of plants to fill perennial beds and family members recall her active and creative role in the shaping of the gardens.  Judging from the content of these notes and numerous references in letters and diaries, Belle managed the gardens and garden staff closely and gave her attention to the smallest detail.

Belle refined the other sections of the garden to include a fountain, a goldfish pool and statuary.  The pool held Japanese goldfish or koi and was surrounded by an arc of azaleas.  A statue depicting Antigone was purchased at Versailles, France by Belle along with a sundial for the garden.

By 1916, a Tea House that Belle purchased from a New York dealer was assembled at the end of the rose garden and surrounded by an oriental style garden with tree peony and cedar and mulberry trees.  The Tea House remained on the grounds of Wistariahurst until the late 1970s.  After years of exposure and vandalism, a small fire damaged the Tea House.  After the fire, the structure was dismantled and placed into storage.

Self-guided garden tours are encouraged, and though the gardens, walkways, benches, statuary and now dry water structures offer only a hint of the garden's former elegance, we are hoping that one day our efforts to restore the gardens might one day return them to their former glory.

Rose Garden June 2010
by John Waitling

Gardens June 2010
by John Waitling

2009 Annual Garden Sale Photograph by Denis Luzuriaga

2009 Annual Garden Sale Photograph by Denis Luzuriaga

2009 Annual Garden Sale Photograph by Denis Luzuriaga