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Skylands (estate)

Historic house in New Jersey, United States

Field	Value
name	Skylands
image	Skylands.jpg
caption	Skylands manor
location	Ringwood State Park, Ringwood, New Jersey
coordinates
locmapin	USA New Jersey Passaic County#New Jersey#USA
built	1922
architect	John Russell Pope
architecture	Tudor Revival
website
added	September 28, 1990
area	96 acre
refnum	90001438
designated_other1_name	New Jersey Register of Historic Places
designated_other1_abbr	NJRHP
designated_other1_link	New Jersey Register of Historic Places
designated_other1_date	February 28, 1990
designated_other1_number	2405
designated_other1_num_position	bottom
designated_other1_color	#ffc94b

Skylands is a 1119 acre estate property located in Ringwood State Park in Ringwood, New Jersey, a borough in Passaic County in the state of New Jersey. The Skylands property consists of the historic Skylands Manor mansion, and the New Jersey Botanical Garden; the botanical garden is 96 acre and it is open to the public year-round. The Skylands property is within the Ramapo Mountains and it is maintained by the Skylands Association. The property is marketed with the garden as New Jersey State Botanical Garden at Skylands.

The house and gardens, including formal gardens and specimen plantings, were built in the 1920s by Clarence MacKenzie Lewis, a New York City stockbroker and civil engineer. Lewis hired architect John Russell Pope to design the 44-room Tudor Revival manor house. The manor is a reproduction English mansion featuring rectangular, bay and oriel windows. A nine-hole golf course once graced this property. In addition, from circa 1950 the property was used as a college campus for Shelton College until in 1966 the state purchased the 1,117 acres of Skylands from the college, which moved to Cape May.

The estate was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 28, 1990, for its significance in architecture and landscape architecture.

Garden

In 1966, the State of New Jersey purchased the entire estate to establish the New Jersey State Botanical Garden. The property now includes slightly more than 4,000 acres (16 km²) of parkland and contains a wide range of specialized garden areas, including a crab apple allée, perennial garden, peony garden, Lilac Garden, azalea garden, magnolia walk, octagonal garden, wildflower garden, hosta and rhododendron garden, annual garden, summer garden, and moraine garden.

Garden maintenance is shared between employees of the New Jersey State Park Service and volunteers from the Skylands Association, the nonprofit partner that supports the site.

The Winter Garden included New Jersey's largest Jeffery pine (Pinus jeffreyi). Its east side features a weeping beech beside a century-old upright beech, as well as a Japanese umbrella pine. Other interesting non-native trees include an Algerian fir (Abies numidica) and an Atlas cedar (Cedrus atlantica).

Annual Garden The layout of the Annual Garden remains true to its original design; however, the plantings are refreshed each season. This allows for a dynamic display that changes from year to year while preserving the garden’s historic framework and design intent.

Perennial Garden Located just south of the Annual Garden, the Perennial Garden is designed in a series of “garden rooms” that provide visual interest throughout the growing season. This space has been carefully restored to Mr. Lewis’ original design and continues to offer color, texture, and structure across all seasons.

Lilac Garden While some of the lilacs on the property likely predate Mr. Lewis’s ownership, the majority were planted under his oversight during the 1920s. Approximately 200 plants were installed during this period, including both species and named cultivars originating from France, as well as a Japanese tree lilac. Today, the Lilac Garden features more than 100 cultivars. The collection is actively being evaluated, with ongoing efforts to identify existing plants and expand the diversity of the collection.

Gallery

File:Skylands3.jpg|The State Botanical Garden at Skylands File:Skylands, Ringwood, NJ - fall garden view.jpg|Fall view of the garden File:Skylands2.jpg|An Outbuilding at Skylands Manor File:SheperdLake2.jpg| Shepherd Lake Recreation Area File:Penn Station Eagle by Weinman, at Ringwood, NJ, on left.jpg|Eagle by Adolph Weinman from Pennsylvania Station (1910–1963), now at Skylands

References

{{NRISref. 2013a
(June 24, 2019). "New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places – Passaic County". [[New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection]] – Historic Preservation Office.
"New Jersey State Botanical Gardens".
["NRHP Nomination: Skylands / Skylands Botanical Garden"]({{NRHP url). [[National Park Service]].
"Gardens".
"Penn Station eagles come to roost in the Highlands".

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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