Blithewood Garden
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Blithewood Garden, a classic example of a walled Italianate garden, was designed circa 1903 by Francis L. V. Hoppin (1867–1941) of the architectural firm Hoppin & Koen. Situated on a steeply sloping bluff approximately 130 feet above the Hudson River, Blithewood is a 45-acre section of the Bard College campus that was once part of a historic estate comprising a manor house, outbuildings, drives, gardens, lawns, and meadows. Located in the heart of the Hudson River National Historic Landmark District, Blithewood Garden today remains as breathtakingly beautiful as ever, including its awe-inspiring backdrop of the Catskill Mountains and Hudson River.
Update: We are now open to the public again!
Welcome to Blithewood!
Current Hours of Blithewood Garden
Blithewood Garden is open to the public from dawn to dusk every day.
Please note: Due to safety precautions surrounding COVID-19, hours may change. Please check in regularly for updates.
The Blithewood Garden Rehabilitation Project
Bard College and the Garden Conservancy, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to saving and sharing outstanding America gardens, are working together on repairs to the historic garden's structures and hardscape.
Learn More about becoming a Friend of Blithewood
Tours and Guides
For an audio tour of Blithewood, dial 845-752-BLWD (2593) or email: blithewoodgarden@bard.edu.
Blithewood self-guided walking tour brochures are available at Blithewood, Bertelsmann Campus Center information desk, and Montgomery Place Visitor Center, or you may download a printable version before you visit.
Blithewood Guide (PDF)
The Arboretum offers staff-led group tours and welcomes group visits with advance reservations. For more information about group visits, please see the Group Visit Information Sheet. All groups must fill out the Group Tour Request Form below. Also, groups interested in a guided tour should contact the Arboretum office at 845-752-LEAF (5323) or email arboretum@bard.edu at least two weeks prior to their visit.
Group Tour Request Form
The Bard Arboretum gardens and grounds are open from
dawn to dusk daily unless otherwise posted.
For the safety and enjoyment of all visitors, please:
• Carry out everything that you carry in.
• Be aware: ticks found in this area may carry
Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases.
• Drone operators must have prior approval from Bard Security.
• All professional photographers must obtain
a signed release from Bard College.
The following are prohibited:
• Glass containers
• Picking flowers.
• Climbing trees, walls, or garden structures.
• Swimming or bathing.
• Alcohol and illegal drugs.
• Vandalism (violators will be fined).
• Firearms or other weapons, including projectile-firing devices.
NOTICE: Premises are under surveillance. Please notify Bard Security
of any concerns or hazardous conditions at 845-758-7460.
Praise for Blithewood
"Few places that we have ever seen exhibit such marked evidence of refined taste, and correct appreciations of rural beauty, as Blithewood. The spot itself is one possessing great natural attraction, and these have been heightened and improved to the greatest possible advantage."
—author unknown, The Cultivator, 1845
Hunter Explores Blithewood
Hunter is a Bard College student in the Environmental and Urban Studies Program with a focus on environmental science. Hunter took Economics 100 at the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College, located on the historic Blithewood Estate.
"When I'm not taking classes I enjoy relaxing around here ... I like to fly my kite here and I love spending time in the Italian garden."
About Blithewood Garden
Blithewood Garden today remains breathtakingly beautiful, including its awe-inspiring backdrop of the Catskill Mountains and Hudson River.
Designed by Francis L. V. Hoppin (1867–1941), Blithewood Garden is a classic example of a walled Italianate garden. In keeping with the turn-of-the-century trend toward Romanticism, the formal Italian garden acts as an extension of the Georgian-style mansion. Hoppin designed the house in 1900 for Captain Andrew C. Zabriskie (1853–1916) and his wife, Frances Hunter Zabriskie (d. 1951), who owned the Blithewood estate from 1899 to 1951, when their son, Christian Zabriskie, donated it to Bard College.
Hoppin wanted the walled garden to create a sense of solitude, a haven, for its owners.
Blithewood Garden is a quintessentially architectural garden. It follows the traditional Italianate design, with a at ground plane, paths on geometric axes, symmetrical beds, a central water feature, statuary, marble ornaments, and walls that form an enclosure, creating a green "room." The main axis of the sunken, rectangular garden and its terraces terminates at a pavilion overlooking the Hudson River. During an interview in 1903, Hoppin expressed his thoughts about the relationship between the house and garden, saying that both "are properly parts of a single design . . . rather than afterthoughts."
Blithewood Garden was designed with no singular color scheme.
Plantings
Blithewood's formal garden, lawn, and woodlands contain remnants of vegetation that once existed around much of the estate. Historically, Frances Hunter Zabriskie would have included clipped evergreens, tree peonies, tulips, irises, hyacinths, gladiola, daffodils, phlox, delphiniums, lavender, forget-me-nots, ivy, buttery bush, rhododendrons, lilacs, wisteria, and rugosa and climbing roses, as well as maintained turf. Potted oleander and orange trees, geraniums, nasturtiums, cosmos, snapdragons, and zinnias also graced the garden each year.
Articles about Blithewood
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Host Your Event at Blithewood
If you are interested in hosting an event, film or photography session at Blithewood, please contact Susanna E. Armbruster, coordinator of summer programs and community resources at:
armbrust@bard.edu
Praise for Blithewood Garden
"Robert Donaldson 'shaped the land into pleasure grounds of aesthetic delights: shaded bowers, terraced gardens, waterfalls, and long vistas, utilizing what nature had so bountifully supplied. Integral to his design were the farm and its fields, pastures, barns, and livestock.'"
—Jean Bradley Anderson, Carolinian on the Hudson, 1996