Landscape Information
This sculpture garden was conceived in 1965 when PepsiCo relocated its corporate headquarters to a former polo club 35 miles north of New York City. Seven three-story symmetrical buildings designed by architect Edward Durrell Stone were organized around a cruciform-shaped courtyard enclosed on all sides but the northern, which opened on axis with an entry road bifurcating an expansive lawn. The architect’s son Edward Durrell Stone, Jr. was commissioned to design a sculpture garden on the surrounding 144-acre site. Stone, Jr. installed flowering bulbs around eight sculptures and planted more than 6000 deciduous trees to obscure the massive parking lots that ring the ovoid property.
In 1981 British landscape architect Russell Page began a five year process of redesigning the grounds. His plan utilized carefully selected sculpture to organize the composition and spatial relationships of the plantings. Page unified the site with an amber-colored gravel walkway that connected the courtyard to the rest of the site. Ten themed garden rooms were developed to include complex designs of ornamental grasses, azaleas, bog and stream ecologies, and a water lily garden comprised of three rectangular pools in a level grass lawn bordered by perennials. With three sunken gardens, the courtyard features a circular spray fountain surrounded by an open plaza and clipped yews. Throughout the garden, masses of trees conceal and reveal works by a number of significant artists.
Today, with additional land acquisitions, the garden measures 168 acres, exhibits 45 works of monumental sculpture, and is named for PepsiCo’s chief executive officer at the time of its inception.
