Tower Hill. John W Trexler
was something like “Go fuck yourselves,” was not well-received.
The following Saturday before a football game, my punishment was to kneel on one knee and sing the school song. I have a pretty good voice, so my rendition was applauded. The glee club later solicited me. As classes began in earnest, reality slowly sank in. You went to college to learn a skill that would lead to a career, one that would give you the ability to live independently and pay taxes. In my freshman year I was exposed to careers in ornamental horticulture that were then available: golf course superintendent, landscape contractor, nursery manager, arborist, florist. I realized after that first year that none of those careers appealed to me.
The school required that you work nine months at a job relating to your major and I decided to take a position as a grounds keeper on campus. It appealed to me more than going home and gave me the opportunity to spend time in Philadelphia, thirty minutes away by train. The job mostly entailed mowing and weeding, but one day I was ordered to dig a semi-circular bed flanking a path leading to the administration building and plant it with red geraniums. The bed turned out a bit misshapen but so was the path that gave it its outline. When I finished, I stood back to examine it. I thought it looked odd. Just then the assistant dean drove by, stopped, rolled down the window, stared long and hard at the bed of geraniums, then at me, and stuttered, “That looks like hell.” He rolled up the window and drove off. My first effort at landscape design was pronounced a definitive failure.
The Beacon Hill House
On my one trip home that summer, I attempted to visit an estate called the Beacon Hill House in Newport. I had discovered it in a book on historic landscape architecture at the college library. The photographs revealed a garden of great beauty located in the rocky terrain of the Newport coastline, although it was set back from the famous Ocean Drive. The garden was designed by the Olmstead Brothers and owned by Arthur Curtis James. One morning I borrowed my parents’ car, drove the forty-five minutes to Newport and found the area where I thought the garden might be located, to no avail. I knocked on doors and asked whomever responded if they knew where the home of Arthur Curtis James was—the Beacon Hill house to be specific. No one had any idea of what I was referring to. Eventually, I stopped in front of a house that was almost hidden from the street, parked, and with some apprehension walked up the gravel driveway. It was clear that someone had entered the driveway too fast and made ruts, spraying gravel into the shrub plantings on either side. One of the granite bollards flanking the entrance had been knocked over and broken. I rang the doorbell and waited. The man who answered was about my age with a scratch on his face and a prominent black eye. Nervously I asked if he knew of the Beacon Hill House. He said, “No,” but told me to wait a moment. A few minutes later an older man appeared, “I understand you’re looking for the Beacon Hill House.”
“Yes,” I said.
“It was burned down years ago. What’s left is across the street.”
Sure enough, diagonally across the street were two impressive gateposts with a chain between them. I resituated my car on the street and began my adventure. I quickly deduced that this was a service entrance because I found the remains of greenhouses and cold frames. Like the Roman Forum, the Beacon Hill House was in ruins. Beyond the dilapidated greenhouses I found natural stone steps leading up to a high point and the remains of a limestone belvedere with a view of the ocean. It was complete with a mosaic compass rose. A bit further I located a second natural stone stairway that led down to the remains of a cypress lattice screen and gate posts into what was the Blue Garden—so beautifully illustrated in the book from the library. I kicked away years of accumulated leaves to find blue tile and limestone-edged pools.
The outline of the garden was still visible. Cryptomeria trees, which once served as evergreen screens, still remained. Another path led past where the house must have stood. Beyond were the remnants of Mrs. James’ rose garden, where climbing roses with yellow flowers had miraculously survived. There was a circular pool, an overlook, and a curved staircase leading down to further sections of the rose garden. A pool directly below the overlook had once been filled by water cascading over the millstone above. I continued until I found myself out in the open, standing on what must have been a great lawn leading up to the house. From there I exited through the former main entrance and followed the road until my car appeared in the distance.
The Beacon Hill House, from a postcard published in 1920
Courtesy Library of Congress
I was both exhilarated and saddened by what I had seen. I fantasized about owning such a property and restoring it to its former glory.
Finding a Direction
In my sophomore year, I became friends with a senior, Tom Buchter, who clearly knew what direction his education would take him. In contrast, I couldn’t even figure out how to spend my summer. Tom suggested I apply for a job at Ringwood, a state park in northern New Jersey that had beautiful landscape gardens. I applied and was hired.
Tom Buchter and John, 1978
Ringwood State Park comprises approximately 16,000 acres. Primarily woodland, it contributes in part to the Wanaque Reservoir watershed. There are three large recreation areas: Erskine Lake, Ringwood Manor, and Skylands Manor. Ringwood Manor was the former country estate of the Cooper-Hewitt family and Skylands was the former summer home of Clarence McKenzie Lewis. Skylands was more interesting horticulturally, although Ringwood had a storied history going back to the late eighteenth century. I spent most of that first summer at Ringwood, weeding the beds around the house and cutting out invasive vines at the top of the large terrace garden, which was adjacent to, but had no relationship with, the manor house. My most memorable experiences at Ringwood involved poison ivy and pruning lilac.
The poison ivy was growing above the wall at the far end of the lower terrace. God only knows why I got it in my head to pull this vine out with my bare hands, but I did. There was hardly a square inch of my body that wasn’t affected. With the help of calamine lotion and perseverance, it slowly went away. I later learned from Euell Gibbons’ book, Stalking the Wild Asparagus, that if you eat three leaves of poison ivy every day for three weeks in early spring, you will develop immunity. I followed the formula and I’m happy to say it worked—although everyone thought I was out of my mind. I have not had a case of poison ivy since.
The lilac at the entrance to Ringwood State Park, 2016
The lilac (Syringa vulgaris), located near the front gate, consisted of an exceptionally large colony of old gnarled trunks at least fifteen feet in height. One Saturday I decided to “rejuvenate” it. I began thinning out the oldest and, by the way, the most beautiful trunks. I sawed and sawed until I was completely exhausted. The end result was a thin thicket of small amorphic young growth. I had butchered the once noble planting—another horticultural failure.
Working at Ringwood gave me the opportunity to take a walk through the terrace gardens at Skylands with the superintendent of the park. Somewhat arrogantly, he rattled off the names of each shrub. To my surprise I remembered the name of every plant. Plant binomials became a new and second language.
That summer I came to the realization that public horticulture was my career path. I was stimulated by the restoration of fine old gardens. The work gave me the opportunity to take care of a great variety of plants as well as meet and talk to visitors. I enjoyed answering their questions and giving them gardening tips.
Thanks to Tom’s suggestion that I work at Ringwood, I developed a true sense of purpose and professional goals as I started my junior year. I