Historic Landscape

Hill-Stead is one of the nation’s few remaining representations of early-
20th-century Country Place Estates. From 1898 to 1901, Theodate Pope Riddle transformed 250 acres of thin-soiled, rocky New England farmland into a picturesque landscape that supported a working farm and also reflected the refined tastes of a wealthy and widely traveled family.

Theodate was particularly drawn to the grand scale and beauty of the designed English countryside, the Arts and Crafts vernacular of the Cotswalds, and the Neoclassical Revival of urban formal gardens. With its farm buildings, transplanted mature trees and Colonial-style dry laid stonewalls, Hill-Stead was built to mimic the farmsteads of the 1700s. The estate looked as if it had existed for generations.

From the beginning, Hill-Stead had a sense of grandeur and permanence. Thirty-foot elm trees, hauled in by horse and wagon and planted close to the west façade of the house, provided scale as well as shade. A gracefully curving and gently rising drive, flanked by an allée of stately maples and stonewalls, created a dramatic sense of arrival.

As in the English Park movement, the natural characteristics of the land shaped Hill-Stead’s features. After consulting with Warren H. Manning, Theodate located her buildings on the highest point of land to take advantage of sweeping vistas, valleys and jagged ridges. From this vantage point she created three distinct sightlines, thus ingeniously and subtly layering design on an agrarian landscape. From the imposing west façade of the house, the first sightline, a wide greensward, detailed with ha-ha and slate stone walkway, gently sloped down to the village of Farmington and visually linked Hill-Stead to the Colonial houses of the village. Irregular massing of trees and shrubs reinforced the soft undulations of the landscape set against dramatic views of the distant Litchfield Hills.

A pond, located in a natural swale just north of the house, created a second sightline, directing the eye to its reflective surface through open pasture to farm buildings and an orchard beyond. Dug as a water hazard for Alfred Pope’s six-hole golf grounds, the pond also served to supply water for fire suppression and provide block ice for refrigeration. A large kitchen-and-cutting garden, located off the northeast side of the house, further defined the area. A theater, stable, maintenance buildings and a 100-foot-long greenhouse formed a continuous ell, and provided efficiency and access to the domestic zone on the hill.

A third, intimate sightline
to the south, defined by a formal flower garden in a natural depression near the main house, contrasted
with the rather loose organization of the greater landscape. Neoclassical in concept, the octagonal garden was surrounded by massive six-foot stonewalls and contained a summer house, pergola and sundial. Just beyond the sunken garden, a loosely planted wild garden provided a gentle transition from the domestic area to woodlands and a sheep meadow beyond.