Landscape Information
Atop a bluff, this cleared plateau of approximately 68 acres east of the Hudson River is surrounded by rolling woodland terrain. Its elevation affords borrowed views of Constitution Marsh and Island, the Hudson River, and the Hudson Highlands.
The Neoclassical mansion (1804–1808) was initially built fifteen miles north by States and Elizabeth Dyckman, wealthy American Loyalists. Acquired in 1923 by Westchester County Parks, the structure was neglected and, by 1941, threatened by demolition. In 1954 local citizens, supported by publisher and philanthropist Lila Acheson Wallace, purchased it. Two years later the group acquired sixteen acres in Garrison, subsequently disassembling and rebuilding the mansion at this new location. In 1959 landscape architect Richard Webel of Innocenti & Webel was commissioned to design the grounds, planting mature shrubs and flowering deciduous trees to create the effect of an established landscape.
Oriented northeast to southwest, framing views of the Hudson River and Highlands, the Maple Allée is the defining feature of Webel’s Beaux-Arts plan. Running in a straight line covering the length of the main lawn area, it originates near the mansion and forecourt. At its northernmost tip, it curves downward to the west, along a parallel brick path that bisects a gridded apple orchard proceeding past a carriage house, orangery and herb garden. Its axial terminus is a fountain centered on a quadrated rose garden, which also resides on a cross axis with the mansion and a hedge-framed river view. Past the mansion on the bluff’s edge, a semicircular brick belvedere overlooks the river. A large pond to the east is bounded by a brick wall, connecting to the Frances Stevens Reese Woodland Trail.
Reed Hilderbrand completed a landscape master plan, in 2021, rehabilitating the grounds, improving accessibility, replanting the formal garden with Colonial-era native plants, and, with Larry Weaner, transforming the main lawn into an indigenous meadow.
Boscobel was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, and is located within the Maurice D. Hinchey Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area.
