History

The history and significance and current condition of Dumbarton Oaks Park has been extensively described and documented in narratives such as a Cultural Landscape Report and a nomination to the National Register of Historic Places . This information in this history section is adapted with guidance from Maureen Joseph and Kay Fanning, PhD, and from text found in Cultural Landscape Report: Dumbarton Oaks Park, Rock Creek Park (Part 1), 2000 and the Dumbarton Oaks Park, National Register Nomination (2004).

Dumbarton Oaks Park is located in the northwest portion of Washington, D.C., in historic Georgetown. The park is one of several units administered for the NPS by the Superintendent of Rock Creek Park. Dumbarton Oaks Park occupies 27 acres of a valley through which flows a small, unnamed tributary stream of Rock Creek. The valley was originally part of the estate known as Dumbarton Oaks, located on "R" Street on the heights of Georgetown . The site has a rich eighteenth and nineteenth-century history. However, diplomat Robert Woods Bliss and his wife Mildred Barnes Bliss, who owned Dumbarton Oaks from 1920 to 1940, transformed the landscape. During the Bliss' ownership, the various areas of the estate were fully integrated within the extensive landscape design created for the property by landscape architect, Beatrix Farrand (1872-1959). Farrand worked for the Blisses primarily from 1921 to 1940, although she continued to consult and make revisions to the gardens' design until 1951. The gardens particularly reflect Mildred Bliss's passion, and she was intimately involved with Farrand in each step of the design process.

In the valley portion of the estate, Farrand created a naturalistic landscape, a "wild" garden, where an abundance of herbaceous plants and spring-flowering bulbs were sown and allowed to naturalize within open woodland along the stream and in meadows stretching across a hillside. This wild valley garden Dumbarton Oaks formed the ultimate destination of a progression through its gardens, which began with formal, classical terraces near the house, and proceeded through increasingly less formal gardens down a slope before arriving at the wild garden in the valley. The meandering circulation that Farrand laid out is, in essence, a circular walk, which leads a visitor through a varied, yet logical, sequence of garden rooms, culminating in the "wild" garden with its natural flowing stream, woodland plantings and grassy meadows.

Farrand worked closely with Mildred Bliss to create the illusion of a country estate in the city. The valley garden provided a backdrop to the whole of the Dumbarton Oaks estate, fostering the illusion of a pastoral retreat of almost limitless extent through its carefully designed woodlands and meadows, which shielded it from the surrounding city, and its subtle manipulation of scale and space. Throughout the design process, Dumbarton Oaks remained a superb example of a successful creative collaboration between patron and artist. Today, Farrand's work at Dumbarton Oaks is considered to be the crowning project of her career.

By 1940 Dumbarton Oaks was complete. In that same year, the Blisses donated their residence, their preeminent art collection, as well as the other buildings and formal gardens on the upper levels of the estate, to Harvard University . The University continues to maintain this portion as Dumbarton Oaks Gardens and Grounds. The Blisses gave the lower, stream valley garden – Dumbarton Oaks Park – to the federal government. By subdividing the property and giving portions of the estate to these two entities, the Blisses ensured, in different ways, the landscape legacy of Farrand's extraordinary work.

In the ensuing years, Dumbarton Oaks Park has suffered from the inadvertent effect of limited physical and financial resources. Fortunately, the National Park Service was able to give the valley garden a level of care that preserved the design well into the 1960s. A change in NPS management philosophy and jurisdictional boundaries in the early 1970s as well as impacts from the physical development of adjacent properties marked the beginning of the slow decline that affected Dumbarton Oaks Park in profound ways. Although incremental in nature, the change was dramatic. Within two decades, invasive vegetation grew unchecked, running rampant into the woodland and open meadows; structural features deteriorated due to lack of funding for routine maintenance; and uncontrolled storm water run-off eroded the stream banks. The park's design was so fragmented by overgrown vegetation that Farrand's intended progression and its intimate scale had been lost. This physical deterioration, in turn, undermined public awareness and appreciation for the park's original naturalistic design and beauty. The park's condition also contrasted strikingly to the well-cared formal gardens at Dumbarton Oaks.

The true significance of Dumbarton Oaks Park was not brought to light until the mid-1980s, at which point the damage was already extensive. From that point forward the National Park Service has worked to reclaim this lost garden. The NPS addressed the situation with a Historic American Buildings survey (1989), and later with a series of landscape studies, support from a Friends' group, and service-based initiatives including an ambitious two-part Cultural Landscape Report. Efforts during this period emphasized the need to understand and document the park's history, analyze its condition, and make specific treatment recommendations for its stabilization and its eventual restoration.

In making the decision to restore Dumbarton Oaks Park , the National Park Service focused on the significance of the park as a historic designed landscape. Fully aware of the long-term commitment required for complete restoration, park managers acknowledged the need to recognize the property's cultural significance. Although the goal is for the park's restoration in accordance with the Secretary of the Interior's Standards and guidelines for the treatment of Cultural Landscapes, a limited amount of rehabilitation will also be undertaken to respond to current use, new regulations, changing environmental factors, and ever-changing maintenance criteria.

Dumbarton Oaks Park has recently been listed on the National Register of Historic Places because of its association with the lives of persons significant in our past; and because it embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, and represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values. The Park is important for its association with the philanthropists and art collectors Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Bliss. As an integral component of the overall design for the Dumbarton Oaks estate, the Park is part of one of the most extensive Beaux-Arts estate gardens in the U.S. and a significant element in the most important remaining design by Beatrix Farrand — a woman famed for her designed landscapes and for her contributions to the field of landscape architecture. Farrand was a pioneer woman landscape architect of national importance and the only female among the founding members of the American Society of Landscape Architects (1899). The gardens as a whole also are intimately related to the Blisses' mission for the Dumbarton Oaks collections and research programs, providing an idyllic oasis for scholars engaged in a wide range of humanistic study.

Additionally, Dumbarton Oaks Park is important as an example of a naturalistic garden with Arts and Crafts details. Its simple, rustic, stone and wood frame structures and features use local materials and reflect the work of skilled craftsmen. Vines were grown over many structures to tie them into the landscape. The park is also an example of a "wild garden," a popular approach to naturalistic gardening in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A wide variety of both native and exotic plants, particularly shrubs, bulbs, perennials, and herbaceous materials, were planted in groupings that resembled their natural patterns of growth.