FOUND IN TRANSLATION

A mid-century American landscape interprets eighth-century Chinese garden design to lasting effect

- MARY PURPURA

I’ve visited a lot of gardens over the years, many of them beautiful and unusual. But I’ve never been so moved and inspired by a designed space as I was during a fall 2022 visit to Innisfree Garden in Millbrook, N.Y. For those who create and tend gardens—or for anyone who loves the natural world—time spent at Innisfree will be affecting and stirring.

“Garden” in the place name seems like a misnomer. The 185-acre space is more of a deeply nourishing sanctuary for the soul.

Arriving at Innisfree, visitors receive a numbered map that marks the locations of certain features, such as Dumpling Knoll; Stone Steps + Waterfall; Lotus Bog; and Pine Island. Though numbered, these spots are not really separate or discrete; each blends and melts into the others, revealing the mastery behind Innisfree’s overall design. The garden holds individual design elements, yes, but the grand vision of the whole, and the feelings of peace and rightness engendered by it, predominate.

DESIGN DISCOVERIES 

As I’ve been studying this garden, I’ve learned a couple of terms that are new to me: cup garden and stroll garden.

A cup gardens is designed to focus attention on an element that is beautiful or special by enclosing or framing it. There are cups within cups within cups at Innisfree. Some cups are tiny, like the water lily and lotus blossoms that open each spring. Some are quite large, like the 40-acre glacial lake that acts as the landscape’s centerpiece. Cups can be nested, too: The water-lily blossom is a cup within the cup of the glacial lake, itself contained and framed by low, forested hills.