Innisfree Garden near Millbrook, New York, developed from Walter and Marion Beck’s private estate into a historic public landscape centered on Tyrrel Lake. Inspired by classical Chinese culture and later shaped with landscape architect Lester Collins, Walter Beck created composed scenes of rocks, water, plants, and landforms that blended with the site’s ecology. After the Becks’ deaths, the property opened to the public in 1960, and Collins simplified and unified the garden as a continuous landscape and “partnership with nature.” Innisfree became an important American interpretation of Chinese and Japanese garden traditions and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2019.

Photo: Wikipedia · Public domain

Photo: Wikipedia · Public domain

Photo: Wikipedia · Public domain