THE INSPIRING GARDENS OF Blithewold

WITH ITS 33 ACRES of gardens and an arboretum overlooking Narragansett Bay in the historic port of Bristol, Rhode Island, Blithewold is an exceptional example from the era of the American Country Place. The graceful estate was in the late 1890s a summer home for coal magnates Bessie and Augustus Van Wickle of Hazleton, Pennsylvania. The waterfront property had formerly belonged to international banker John Rogers Gardner, who in the 1860s had begun landscaping in the style of an English country estate, adding meandering gravel paths, exotic specimen trees, and a greenhouse, where he grew orchids and roses.

Like many wealthy industrialists