Landscape Information
This private residential garden in the Berkshires was created over the span of 30 years by composer John Stewart McLennan, Jr., who acquired the 120-acre estate in 1937. The property, surrounded by a 594-acre wooded reservation, was part of a 1,000-acre estate that Egyptologist Robb de Peyster Tytus combined from three farms in 1903. Tytus constructed a large Georgian-style mansion which he named Ashintully, a Gaelic word meaning “on the brow of the hill.” The manor was destroyed by a fire in 1952, but the ruined foundations and the portico’s Doric columns remain. The site is accessed by a half-mile woodland trail and offers scenic views of the Tyringham Valley and Bartholomew's Cobble.
The garden spaces integrate the land’s existing natural features, such as a meandering brook and copses of deciduous trees, while low serpentine fieldstone walls were added to frame the rolling terrain. On the edge of the property lies a set of stone steps built into a mound that offers sweeping panoramic views of open meadowlands backed by distant hills. Footbridges span the stream and grassy terraces and are strewn with classical statuary and benches. The central focus of the garden is a stone-lined Fountain Pond with a single fountain jet at the center. Other spaces include the Pine Park, Rams Head Terrace, Bowling Green, and Trellis Triptych.
The estate and the adjoining reservation were bequeathed to a land trust in 1996 and are maintained by The Trustees of Reservations.
