By Judy Carmack Bross
Garden Conservancy Members in Murray Bay at the home and gardens of Todd Schwebel with the St Lawrence River in the background. In front, from left: Ritchie Battle, Alice Snyder. Standing, from left: Alan Zeigler, Erik Brockmeyer, Scott Sotille, Michael Foster, Christopher Spitzmiller, Anthony Bellamo, Cookie Potter, Susan Dunlevy, Jay Feinberg, Bruce Addison, Nancy Gilbert, Richard Wines, John Staelin, Jeannie Witmer, Rick Witmer, Alease Fisher, June Marshall Smith, Elizabeth Locke, Isabelle Smith, Erin Sullivan, and Camille Butrus
On the blue bridge, from left: Camille Butrus, Jay Feinberg, Alice Snyder, Cookie Potter, John Staelin, and Ritchie Battle at Les Quatre-Vents
Members of the Society of Fellows of the Garden Conservancy recently toured Les Quatre-Vents in Murray Bay (La Malbaie) Quebec, considered by many experts as the finest private garden in North America. Conceived by the Garden Conservancy’s founder Francis H. Cabot, Frank to his many friends around the world, it features over a thousand special of plants appearing in unexpected and enchanted ways. The Garden supports the mission of the Centre Écologique de Port-au-Saumon (CEPAS) to raise awareness and educate young people and the general population in natural sciences and understanding the environment.
Erik Brockmeyer, Scott Sotille, Alan Zeigler, and Elizabeth Locke. Catherine from the CEPAS organization on the far left at the blue bridge
President and CEO James Brayton-Hall, who received his master’s degree in landscape architecture and has a life-long interest in gardens and garden history, told us about the organization.
“The Garden Conservancy’s mission is preserving, sharing and celebrating America’s gardens and diverse gardening traditions for the education and inspiration of the public. There are more than 350 members in the Conservancy’s Society of Fellows, who are not only our most generous donors, but our best ambassadors. As Fellows, they are invited to travel with the Conservancy on exclusive garden tours. We work very hard to provide a very rarified experience, with access to private gardens and input from the leading voices in horticulture, and garden design, history, and preservation. Traveling with the Fellows creates a close sense of community and raises money to support the Conservancy’s many programs.
“Our United States tours are organized by our Fellows, assisted by staff. Our international tours are more like master classes in garden history. When we visited Sissinghurst in Sussex, our guide was the head gardener Troy Scott Smith. We were just 12 members alone in the garden, when it opened to the public later in the day, 1200 people toured the garden.
“We help new and emerging public gardens become community-based public resources by drawing upon the expertise from our own dedicated staff as well as that our network of experts in all aspects of garden design, management and restoration. We also contribute to the welfare of existing public gardens, helping them manage both natural and manmade challenges to their survival.
“The visit to the Gardens of Quatre-Vents was very special. Frank Cabot was a serious plantsman and a charismatic person. In addition to being our founder, his son Colin Cabot sat on our board for a long time. With Frank’s daughter Marianne Cabot Welch at the helm, long term issues and maintenance are being addressed in very creative ways.”
Standing, from left, Ritchie Battle, Camille Butrus, Alice Snyder, Scott Sotille, Erik Brockmeyer, CEPAS guide Marilyn Elkin, Jay Feinberg, Alan Zeigler, and Elizabeth Locke
Master Gardener, author and potter Christopher Spitzmiller whose ceramics are in many collections including the White House, visited Quatres-Vents with the group of Garden Conservancy members from across the United States. Known to his friends as the ultimate weekend farmer, he is the author of A Year at Clove Brook Farm: Gardening, Tending Flocks, Keeping Bees, Collecting Antiques, and Entertaining Friends about his Millbrook, New York residence.
“As I thought about visiting the famous Quatre-Vents I wondered if the garden would live up to these ‘Great Expectations’ that I had in my head. I have seen the movie The Gardener often—I could see that movie once a month and never tire of it. Frank Cabot is like a mythic legend to me. I didn’t know him in his lifetime, but serving on both the Garden Conservancy Board and the Board at Stonecrop (formerly the home of Anne and Frank Cabot and now a public garden) I am very familiar with his work, and I am both impressed and inspired by his creation. He was a rare bird who really knew how to create something magical and happily thanks to his family, lasting.
“The garden Frank Cabot created at Quatre-Vents is wonderful and unfolds in unexpected ways. There is a wonderful view of Murray Bay that you only see mostly quick glimpses of here and there. I found the garden to be disorienting in a good way. An exploration on to itself. It wasn’t until I got home and saw the map inside Frank’s wonderful book that I fully understood the mysterious garden I had explored,” Spitzmiller said. “All the Garden Conservancy board members are real gardeners and their passion for gardening, for opening their own gardens and for documenting gardens that need to be preserved.”
June Smith at the iconic Pigeonnier at the Garden
We asked Spitzmiller what led him to become involved:
Page Dickey is a longtime friend who served on the Garden Conservancy Board and was one of the founders of Open Days. This program is near and dear to my heart, as it gives access to all members of the Garden Conservancy at any level to private gardens all over America. It gives unparalleled access to otherwise inaccessible gardens. Frank and I both share the sentiment that if you have created gardens like we have, you have an obligation to share. Some people come back year after year. Others travel from far to see it. We open our garden a couple of times a year with the Garden Conservancy and with Trade Secrets, a garden tour and plant sale in Connecticut in May. It keeps us on our toes and keeps the garden looking fresh, tidy, and interesting. I feel the best compliment I can hear is that I inspired someone.”
Christopher Spitzmiller (right) thanks Todd Schwebel for welcoming Garden Conservancy members to his Murray Bay home
Garden Conservancy members Isabelle Smith, Scott Sotille, Susan Dunlevy, June Marshall Smith at the Schwebel party in their honor
Murray Bay is thought by some to be a little paradise with American and Canadian history so a part of it all. Since the Gilded Age, Tafts, Sedgwicks, Tiffanys, Minturns, two Vanderbilt sisters and other families said no to Newport and chose the beauty, the fun of fishing, hiking and days filled with five wardrobe changes as they went for golf to dinner parties. Changing is less challenging these days, but the fun grows as the season builds to a climax in August when everyone arrives.
We asked Spitzmiller what his visit like.
“Murray Bay is a little treasure of a town, with Quatre-Vents as a crown jewel. Todd Schwebel gave us a great introduction to the town, and it was a treat to see some of the lovely homes and gardens there. Todd’s home and garden was one of my favorites,” Spitzmiller said.
Camille Butrus, Todd Schwebel and Marianne Welch
Erin Sullivan and Alan Zeigler at the Vertfeuille gathering
Michael Foster, Rick Witmer, Bruce Addison, Anthony Bellamo share a toast to Murray Bay!
Murray Bay summer resident and house and garden designer Todd Schwebel invited Garden Conservancy members to his 1918 summer house Vertefeuille overlooking the St. Lawrence River where guests toured his own magnificent garden with peonies still in bloom.
“Vertefeuille was built by architect Louis-Auguste Amos for his brother-in-law, Sir Lomer Gouin, the 13th premier of Quebec. It is perched on its own little alpine precipice high above the Boulevard where the mountain almost touches the kitchen door! It is modeled, towers and all, after the eponymous farm in Normandy where the French defeated the Germans in an important battle during WWI,” Schwebel said.
We asked Schwebel to define Murray Bay hospitality.
“Old-fashioned. From platters of deviled eggs on the lawn at drinks, to candle-lit dinner parties for twelve with heirloom china (never mind the chips!) and silver deployed—and always room for one more neighbor’s houseguest – Murray Bay is the place where memories, old and new, fill every gathering with joy!”
Ritchie Battle with Murray Bay summer resident and former Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Philippe de Montebello
John Staelin and Elizabeth Locke
We asked Schwebel to tell us about what is challenging and delightful about gardening in Murray Bay?
“Well, the number one challenge is the deer. Throughout the neighborhood so many of our stunning hedges have been ravaged. Even with protective measures we are forced to consider alternate solutions. For one neighbor, we have completely removed all the hedges and re-envisioned the property as an open plan instead of outdoor rooms. Opening new views to the magnificent St. Lawrence in the process. The power of nature, in every aspect, is so strong in Murray Bay: the lesson is to flow with it and smile!”
Prized peonies with Sir Lomer Gouin looking down in the Vertefeuille Dining Room, where has hung for more than 100 years, having built the house
Todd loves roses, his father Richard was an avid amateur rosarian, and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree- so, its little wonder he cultivates them in every hue at Vertefeuille.
Every July, starting about the Fourth, the front border at Vertefeuille rings out in red, white & blue. Lupines, weigelia, roses and peonies create this colorful display!
We queried Schwebel on how to create a garden that is varied and beautiful throughout the season, how best should one plan in early spring, whether it’s a garden in Murray Bay, Chicago or in southern climates?
“Thanks to my iPhone I now have photo files for my gardens….with photos earmarked for example ‘new bulb locations’ showing the spots where bulbs should be added amidst the other plantings in the spring you can see these places as the surrounded perennials are small, but come fall they are hidden by the plant growth. It’s a fool proof method.”
And enjoy more photos of Todd Schwebel’s Murray Bay garden below.
Every tower needs a hydrangea petiolaris party dress! This stately climbing hydrangea was another suggested addition to the Vertefeuille gardens by Frank Cabot decades ago.
More roses & peonies!
The garden iris meets the mountain with its lichen and moss
As we focused on the beauty of gardens, we couldn’t help but want to learn more about Spitzmiller’s Clove Brook Farm.
Spitzmiller’s Clove Brook Farm Photo credit: The Ingalls
Spitzmiller’s Clove Brook Farm Photo credit: The Ingalls
We asked Spitzmiller to tell us more about Clove Brook Farm and how being a potter and a gardener relate to one another.
“I have had the pleasure of living at Clove Brook Farm for 20 years now. When I bought it in 2005 it was down on its luck, neglected and needed love and renovation. I slowly but steadily worked my way through the house: installing new heating and cooling systems, fireplaces, windows, bathrooms, a kitchen and then decorating it before I set to work on the first garden. Now several gardens later with my husband Anthony Bellomo a landscape architect at my side, who works as hard as I do to keep the farm going. We’re both still very engaged. There are several breeds of heirloom chickens, Sebastopol geese, ducks on our pond, turkeys, peacocks, pigeons in the Dovecote, Southdown Babydoll sheep, two dogs and five cats. We have our hands full and love every moment of it. My book documents a year in our life there. It’s written to share things that have worked for me and to inspire readers to make the most of their own home, no matter how grand or how modest it may be.
“Both pottery and gardening are linked together forever in the earth. They are both about taking dirt and making something beautiful that is both permanent and lasting. Although the garden is a little more fleeting than one of my lamps or plates, I hope that they’ll all outlast me. Gardening and pottery are both about timelessness and enduring beauty. I’m very proud to be a creator of beauty in as many areas of life that I can get my hands into! After all, without beauty and inspiration, what are we here for?”
Since the time of the arrival of Murray Bay’s first famous visitor, President William Howard Taft whose grandson Peter still summers here today, beauty and inspiration have been Murray Bay traditions.
For more information about the Garden Conservancy please visit: gardenconservancy.org
To learn more about Centre Écologique de Port-au-Saumon (CEPAS), visit: cepas.qc.ca
