EAST HAMPTON, NY – Revel in the natural beauty of East Hampton’s magnificent gardens as you tour Guild Hall’s Annual Garden Tour: “The Garden as Art” on August 22-23rd and see them through the perspective of the designers themselves. Most of these extraordinary landscapes have never before been open to the public. Different tickets options are offered so guests can pick and choose which events they would like to attend.

The weekend opens with an exclusive cocktail party at the beautiful oceanfront home and garden of Dina Merrill and Ted Hartley. On Saturday, after a continental breakfast from the Golden Pear at The Maidstone Club, Edwina Von Gal, designer of the botanical park for Panama Bridge of Life, will introduce guests to the morning’s lecturer Mac Griswold, garden historian, eminent author, lecturer and writer for the New York Times. Guests will then have the opportunity to tour the seven, glorious gardens all afternoon. Benefactor ticket holders will also be treated to a private outdoor luncheon at the exquisite home of Guild Hall Board of Trustees members, Cheryl and Michael Minikes. The event is sponsored by Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Chairing the weekend event is Nina Gillman.

What:        Guild Hall’s The Garden as Art

When:        Cocktail Party              Friday, August 22, 6 - 8pm

Continental Breakfast: Saturday, August 23, 9:30am-10:30am

Lectures:                       Saturday, August 23, 10 am - noon

·        10am                     Introduction by Edwina Von Gal

·        10:30-11:30am     Speaker Mac Griswold

“Everything New Under the Sun”

Her talk will have a historical focus, with an emphasis on how certain garden elements are interpreted in the Hamptons today, especially in the gardens featured on the tour—some dating back to the 1800s.Using photographer Erika Shank’s digital images to accompany her ideas, Mac Griswold will invite you into the gardens she has visited.

Private luncheon           Sat, August 23, noon -2 pm, for Benefactor Ticket Holders

Garden Tour:                Saturday, August 23, noon - 5pm

Cost:          Tour of Seven Fabulous Gardens:      $100

Continental Breakfast, Lecture and Tour: $200

Cocktail Party, Continental Breakfast, Lecture and Tour: $300

Cocktail Party, Continental Breakfast, Lecture, Benefactor Private    Luncheon and Tour: $500

Where:      Locations provided upon ticket purchase

Check www.guildhall.org for ticket information, or call/email Danielle Zahm at Guild Hall 631-324-0806 ext. 22, daniellepr@guildhall.org

GARDEN TOUR DESCRIPTIONS

12-5pm for Ticket Holders at $100 and Above

Garden of Dr. Richard Axel, East Hampton.  This Georgica garden, originally owned by the art dealer Ben Heller and masterfully tended by Ray Smith both then and now, is filled with magnificent, old specimen trees that are like an art collection in and of themselves, reminiscent of Alfonso Ossorio’s conifer collection at The Creeks.  Among the specimens are numerous large, unusual conifers, both weeping and otherwise, ancient twisted Japanese maples and beeches and a cathedral grouping at one boundary with a needle-carpeted woodland walk beneath.

Darby Lane Garden, East Hampton.  Located on the site of the grand old “Spencecliff” estate, this garden still has a magnificent Italianate stone grotto dating back to the 1920s, complete with terraces and a temple of Diana above.  A new studio/guest house on the hill above the grotto, with a pebble-filled courtyard, looks down on the other side onto a kitchen and cutting garden and orchard that puts one in mind of the Italian countryside.  Exuberant pots and contemporary sculpture are throughout.

The following three gardens are all located on a small private lane off Further Lane in East Hampton:

Garden of Calista and Ira Washburn.  This is a gardener's garden created and tended by its owners for more than 35 years.  A three-story-high espaliered pear tree, lathe house with wonderful play of light and shade, perennial and mixed borders offer a contemporary take on the domestic architecture of the 1737 homestead at the heart of their home.

Garden of Lalitte Scott Smith.  A passion for alpine plants and rock gardens was the vision that drove Lalitte Scott Smith, the propagator, and her late husband Howell Scott, the designer, when they moved to Further Lane in the mid-1990s.  Their rock garden, under the dappled light of clumps of native shads, is unique on the East End.  Magnificent specimen trees grace the front lawn, while perennial borders in the rear balance the rock garden.   

Garden of Stefanie and Fred Shuman.  Located at the end of the lane, visitors to this property are greeted by the original 1810 Hayground windmill that gives the street its name.  The home, on the crest of the second dune, overlooks the dunes and ocean.  The plantings facing the ocean are deliberately kept low so as not to compete with the view.  Looking upward from the pool area at the base of the hill gives the sensation of climbing out of a steep, wooded gorge, emphasized by a simple white bridge overhead.  Designer Jane Lapin of Wainscott Farms worked in close collaboration with the owner.

Garden of Sandy and Steve Perlbinder, Sagaponack.  Designed by Chris LaGuardia, this dramatic oceanfront property in Sagaponack has a classic modernist feel.  An early Norman Jaffe beach house built by the owners in the late 1960s, with a more recent addition designed by their son-in-law, sits back from the ocean on a simulated dune planted with beach grass.  Other features include a two-acre pond, grassy meadows and screens of shadblows limbed up high.  House and landscape together are a minimalist masterpiece.

Garden of Ian Gazes and Serge Krawiecki, East Hampton.  Located on Skimhampton Road, this garden is shielded from the world outside by tall trees and shrubs that create a wholly separate, enchanted world within.  Designed by Craig Socia, key features of the garden include a twig-style child’s playhouse right out of a fairy tale, a European-feeling entry courtyard and a serene park-like expanse behind the house with glorious perennial borders.

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ABOUT GUILD HALL

Guild Hall, located in East Hampton, NY, is the first arts center in the United States to provide a museum, theater and community meeting place under one roof. Since 1931, Guild Hall has engaged the community in cultural events that embrace all the arts and has been an elegant home to the artistic community. Guild Hall’s intimate galleries showcase emerging and contemporary artists who have lived and worked in the region including some of the world’s most celebrated painters, sculptors, photographers and graphic artists.  The John Drew Theater hosts theatrical luminaries on its jewel box proscenium stage, under its blue-and-white-striped tent-like ceiling that sweeps up to a chandelier of glass balloons. Guild Hall’s Boots Lamb Education Center provides a learning nexus for schools, cultural groups and individuals through studio courses and workshops, lectures, panels, events, film screenings, play readings, group meetings and art and theater classes of all kinds.