Old Westbury Gardens

Gardeners' Fair

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Dear Friends,

As spring approaches, we look forward to celebrating this magnificent season with our annual Gardeners’ Fair to be held on May 31, 2008 to benefit Old Westbury Gardens.  This year we celebrate the formal Rose Garden.  Designed and completed by George A. Crawley in the same year as Westbury House, it has existed at the same location since 1906 with the configuration of the beds outlined by neat brick walks remaining constant. The beds resemble a colorful carpet of concentric circles and squares within squares spread upon the ground.  At the center is a stone column surmounted by a dodecahedral sundial supporting a stone lion.  Each of the twelve faces of this polyhedron is a sundial designed to tell the time from many different angles.

Old Westbury Gardens this year is delighted to honor Julie and Luis Rinaldini for their dedicated leadership in association with the acquisition of “Orchard Hill,” former home of Peggie Phipps Boegner, and for their long-standing friendship to Old Westbury Gardens.

We are grateful to have Luciene Salomone lend us her energies and creative talents as Chairman of this year’s Gardeners’ Fair and fortunate to have past Committee Chairmen, supporters of Old Westbury Gardens and Trustees serve as Gardeners’ Fair Vice Chairmen and encourage friends to attend this special evening.   The music and design of the “‘30s” representative of a glamorous era will make this party especially memorable. 

In his garden designs for Westbury House, George Crawley made use of both the formal and the informal aspects of English design.  Both are valuable and worthy of preserving, the Rose Garden is an example of the former.  The dodecahedron, as its logo, has been a source of metaphysical interest for 2000 years and, to the ancient Greeks the symbol of the universe, compels our eyes and hearts to observe life more deeply.

I hope that you will join me for the Gardeners’ Fair and help assure that the Gardens can maintain the beauty of each feature of the property. 

Please accept my heartfelt thanks,

Mary S. Phipps

Chairman, Board of Trustees

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