Litchfield county estate – North American Country Estates

Maywood is a 50 acre estate outside Bridgewater, Connecticut in Litchfield County. The Georgian/neo-classical style home on the property was designed by the firm of Ferguson and Shamamian and completed in 2000 and is owned by Peter and Leni May. Peter has degrees from the University of Chicago and is a private equity investor along with partner, Nelson Peltz. Their firm, Triarc, has either had major share holdings in or been involved in restructurings of Snapple, Wendy’s, Pepsi Co., Family Dollar and several other major corporations. Maywood is also a working organic farm producing eggs, wines, produce, honey and maple syrup which can be bought at the Bridgewater Village Store. The house and gardens are not open to the public although the gardens are opened up one day per year with the proceeds benefitting the Garden Conservancy. For more information about Maywood, click here. A YouTube video showing the beautiful grounds can be viewed here.

This house and its surrounding gardens is known as Twin Maples. The house was built in 1996 and is situated on a 325 acre estate near Salisbury, Connecticut. It is the creation of a couple who were active in the arts in New York and Boston.

Twin Maples was originally part of a 1740 land grant by King George II of England to the Selleck family and, incredibly, the property has only been sold twice since then. The Sellecks hung on to it for over two hundred years. The name Twin Maples refers to two maple trees that grew at the site of a former house on the property. The Georgian style house was designed by New York architect David Easton who also designed Albemarle House near Charlottesville (click here for more on the infamous Albemarle House).

The house is gorgeous but it is the gardens at Twin Maples that really set this property apart. They include a formal garden next to the house which transitions to woodland gardens and a wildflower meadow. There is even a winter garden inside the house itself. The gardens are the work of landscape architect Rodney Robinson and plantswoman Deborah Munson. Successfully cultivating a wildflower meadow is one of the most difficult things to pull off in gardening but this meadow, designed by Larry Weaner, along with the other gardens has won multiple awards. The entire garden ensemble has also been recognized by the Smithsonian Institution.

Twin Maples is still a private home and is not open to the public although the gardens are occasionally included on local garden tours. A few miles to the north is another significant country estate, the Scoville Estate covered in this blog here.