Van Vleck House &
Gardens
Montclair, New Jersey
May 2008
Van Vleck
House & Gardens is a beautiful estate in the New York
suburbs.
The main estate house was built by
Joseph Van Vleck in 1916 in the style of an Italian villa. In 1993,
the heirs of Howard Van Vleck gave the property to The Montclair
Foundation and it opened to the public.
The 5.8 acre gardens have numerous
beautiful azaleas and rhododendrons. Howard Van Vleck, the last
private owner, was an amateur hybridizer of rhododendrons. Many of
the plants haave identification lables, but I would have liked to
see some interpretation about Van Vleck's breeding efforts. I know
there are several rhododendron cultivars named for Van Vleck's but
I couldn't find any on the grounds. A planting of Van Vleck's
hybrids and a display of cultivars named for family members would
be a great interpretive tool
The gardens are a series of beautiful grassy glades each surrounded
by trees and shrubs.
The highlight of the gardens is an ancient and gigantic Chinese
wisteria climbing over the back courtyard. The trunk is
enormous.
The climbing vines give the whole scene the effect of an ancient
ruin.
This would be a beautiful place to
bring a book and sit for a few hours but touring the gardens can
easily be done in an hour.
Click here to
see more photos of Van Vleck Gardens.
To visit the official website of Van Vleck House and Gardens,
click here.