Photo of the Day: Spring Vista, Skylands Manor, Ringwood, NJ

I took the photo accompanying this post three years ago, at Skylands Manor/New Jersey Botanical Gardens. The weather was especially beautiful that Sunday afternoon, and I imagine this landscape is every bit as beautiful these days.

I have blogged about this site before (including this post), but there are never enough shots of nature’s loveliness to lift the human spirit, so I hope you don’t mind my returning to this subject.

Photo of the Day: Skylands Manor, Exterior, Ringwood NJ

The Tudor Revival mansion of Skylands Manor was designed in the mid-1920s by the American architect John Russell Pope. If his name sounds familiar, it should: Visitors to Washington, DC can see his handiwork in the Jefferson Memorial, the National Archives and the National Gallery of Art.

As you can tell from the date of the design, the building is not really centuries old—it just looks that way. The style—including the weathered stone façade, crenelated walls, rectangular windows, and bay windows—became a favorite of wealthy Americans when they wanted to create country houses for themselves. All the stone in the building was quarried on this estate.

I took this photo in May, on the same afternoon when I visited the New Jersey Botanical Garden (on whose grounds this building sits) and, a couple of miles away, Ringwood Manor.

Photo of the Day: Sunday Stroll, NJ Botanical Gardens

Early this month, on the same afternoon that I visited Ringwood Manor (which I wrote about in this post the other day), I drove a couple miles away to go to Skylands Manor/ New Jersey Botanical Gardens as well. The flowers were not in full bloom yet—that will not come till this week, or next—but area residents could not wait to get out to experience what I think was the first outrageously gorgeous Sunday this spring.