Dear Mr Stillman...

CREATING a classically inspired garden with belvedere, clipped hedge allées, elliptical pool, urns and statuary in the aftermath of the Second World War might seem an unlikely endeavour. But it was not one to daunt Chauncey Devereux Stillman, the grandson of one of America’s richest bankers.

A keen equestrian who rode with the Millbrook Hunt, Stillman was familiar with Dutchess County, two hours north of New York City. In 1937, aged 32, he bought what he described as a ‘run-down farm’ on 400 acres of open farmland in nearby Amenia, later adding another 700 acres. He picked a magnificent site with spectacular views of the Taconic Range, the Berkshires and the Catskills and named it Wethersfield after the Connecticut village where his ancestors had first settled on arriving in America.

‘The garden design