A portion of these proceeds will benefit the conservation of landscape drawings in the collection.

Friday, October 3
Wilmington Wonders and University of Pennsylvania’s Architectural Archives Tea
Wilmington, DE

At the San Francisco ASLA Meeting in 2007, TCLF held their first benefit luncheon at the iconic Donnell Garden in Sonoma.  The sold-out event, limited to 55, was attended by such celebrated landscape architects as Charles Anderson, Pamela Burton, Rich Haag, Lawrence Halprin, Gary Hilderbrand, Cornelia Oberlander, Laurie Olin, Doug Reed, Mark Rios, and Ken Smith. The day culminated with many guests diving into the kidney-shaped pool and climbing atop the Adaline Kent sculpture.

Building on the success and fun of last year, on Friday, October 3, 2008, TCLF has planned another equally special day. Beginning at 10am, attendees will be whisked away to two private gardens that we have secured exclusive access to in Wilmington, Delaware.

The day will begin with a morning stroll at Serendip, an astonishing unpublished masterwork by a local designer/owner. Following this visit, just down the road attendees will be the guests for a special luncheon at Patterns, the home of Governor and Mrs. Pierre S. du Pont.

The du Pont residence, which Kiley was involved in from 1992-1998 is the very last illustrated project to appear in Dan Kiley: The Complete Works of America’s Master Landscape Architect (Kiley and Amidon, pp. 200-201) This last residential commission realized by Kiley, includes a potager, conceived as a walled garden and set on the edge of a gentle, architecturally cut slope, bisected by a canal which is anchored at each end with twelve-foot square pools. The residence is the ideal place to spend a leisurely lunch with friends and colleagues. In 1999, Kiley noted:

“At two hundred and sixty feet, the available planting area for vegetables, annuals and perennials is extensive, yet the potager is as much a place to wander amongst beds as it is to sit and consider the surrounding landscape. . . The pools, in contrast, relate less to the garden’s productive endeavors and more to its capacity to offer relaxation, a place for conversation and respite from the sun.”

Following this leisurely afternoon, attendees will be brought back to Philadelphia for a curated tour/reception of original landscape drawings from the University of Pennsylvania’s Architectural Archives. Many rare and early unpublished works by Dan Kiley, Lawrence Halprin, Peter Shepheard, and others will be displayed and the tour will include a special narration by Cornelia Oberlander regarding the collection’s drawings from her work with Louis Kahn and Dan Kiley on early housing projects in Philadelphia.

Tour Schedule