This tudoresque mansion and the surrounding gardens is known as Skylands and is located near Ringwood, New Jersey. It forms the New Jersey State Botanical Gardens and is part of Ringwood State Park but a century ago it was the country weekend retreat of Francis Lynde Stetson, a New York corporation and railroad attorney who was also the personal lawyer for J. P. Morgan, the preeminent financial engineer of the gilded age. Stetson built a granite mansion on the site and assembled enough land to create a 1,100 acre estate. After Mr. Stetson passed away in 1920, Skylands was sold to investment banker and engineer, Clarence Lewis. Clarence tore down the existing mansion and hired the architect, John Russell Pope, to design the current Tudor-revival mansion which measures 35,000 square feet. Among Pope’s other famous commissions are the Jefferson Memorial and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. In keeping with a common decorating practice of the time, the interior was decorated with portions of English manor houses that were dismantled, shipped across the Atlantic, and then reinstalled.

Mr. Lewis was a trustee of the New York Botanical Garden and set out to create his own botanical showcase on his estate. The basic design was created by landscape architect, Samuel Parsons, a protege of the famous Olmsted firm, during Stetson’s ownership. But Mr. Lewis was also a first rate plantsman who developed an interest in horticulture from working in the garden with his wife, Annah, in their previous home in nearby Mahwah. Annah passed away before Clarence bought Skylands but he continued to pursue an interest in horticulture, traveling the world looking for specimens to transplant at Skylands and also donating plants to nearby nurseries and gardens. Heartbroken over his wife’s untimely death, Mr. Lewis did not remarry and his mother, Helen Salomon, was largely responsible for decorating the interiors.

Mr. Lewis sold Skylands to Shelton College, a christian liberal arts college, in 1953 and the estate was then used for teaching and college functions. Unfortunately, Shelton did not keep up with the landscaping with the same dedication and vision as Clarence Lewis and the grounds deteriorated during the college’s ownership. In 1966, Shelton was looking to unload Skylands and the State of New Jersey stepped up and bought the estate. Amazingly, local gardeners and nurseries who had benefited from Clarence Lewis’ plant donations in previous decades returned the favor and helped to revitalize the gardens and grounds of Skylands using the same plant stock. Today Skylands is one of the preeminent examples of estate gardening in North America.