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The original sunken Italianate garden enclosed by a wall that was part of the 600-acre Wiborg estate by the ocean.
Peel back the hedgerows. Reveal what they conceal.
One hidden treasure is a sunken Italianate garden that once was part of the 600-acre Wiborg estate on the ocean in East Hampton Village. It is enclosed by a wall, and in one corner is a little playhouse with hand-painted murals from 1910. Sara Wiborg used to curl up there and write poetry before growing up to help inspire F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Tender Is the Night.”
Six such secret gems will be “the lure of the tour” on Saturday, May 10, in and very near East Hampton Village. In addition to the sunken garden, the St. Luke’s House and Garden Tour promises peeks of Craig Socia’s little turreted castle with black, white and gray decor; Jack Ceglic’s industrial-metal house with ceilings soaring high enough to accommodate a flourishing Australian tree fern; Dianne Benson’s layered and stylized shade garden “with surprises”; Bill and Kenlynn Mulroy’s Asian-inspired compound wrapped around a party pool with Peroni beer on tap; and Monica Graham’s off-street Frank Lloyd Wright-style house with a tiered stream, koi pond and red maples.
“Everyone is always curious about the houses they pass by, wondering who lives there and what is behind that hedge or fence,” Lys Marigold explained in a press release announcing the tour, which raises money for the church and will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Ms. Marigold is a member of the St. Luke’s vestry, but it was in her role as vice chair of the Village Zoning Board of Appeals that she visited the property with the sunken garden once belonging to the Frank Wiborg, an industrialist who made a fortune in ink and amassed huge amounts of property where the Maidstone Club and Wiborg Beach are today. His wife and daughters loved to garden, and Sara went on to marry Gerald Murphy and become a Jazz Age socialite and expatriate whose circle included Ernest Hemingway, Cole Porter, Dorothy Parker and Pablo Picasso.
Ultimately, the Wiborg house was torn down, parcels were sold off and “until this winter [when she saw the garden] I didn’t know that any part of it was still intact,” Ms. Marigold said. “It was so thrilling to see the original,” she said, ticking off “gorgeous columns and arbors” as well as old trees and bushes with “wonderful shapes,” lots of potted flowers and a rose garden.
“This garden will bloom later, but, my, what lovely bones it has,” she wrote in the press release.
Tickets for the house and garden tour cost $75. There will be a cocktail reception from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Friday, May 9, at what is described as a home on Ocean Avenue, for which tickets cost $200. For information about the event, call Tara at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, (631) 329-0990, or email tower18@stlukeseasthampton.com.
on May 5, 2014