Picture Connecticut: The Sunken Garden

FARMINGTON, CT — The latest stop on the Picture Connecticut tour takes us to the iconic estate called Hill-Sted in Farmington, which is now a living museum.

There, we find the Sunken Garden.

According to museum officials, Hill-Stead's Sunken Garden occupies nearly an acre and features a summer house, brick walkways, and a stone sundial inscribed with a Latin phrase Ars Longa, Vita Brevis, which translates as "Art is Long, Life is Brief."

The octagonal garden is home to more than 90 varieties of perennials and annuals in thirty-six beds, museum officials tell us.

Theodate Pope created the original garden for her mother, Ada Pope, and it was in place on the site in 1901 when Hill-Stead was completed. In the early 1940s, wartime shortages of labor and supplies forced Theodate to seed over her mother's garden with turf. The summer house stood guarded by a lone crab apple tree until 1986, when the Connecticut Valley Garden Club and the Garden Club of Hartford undertook the project of funding and restoring Hill-Stead’s Sunken Garden, museum officials tell us.

Visitors are welcome. Painters, school writing groups and photographers frequent the garden. Each year, it is the site of Hill-Stead’s annual Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, and it is available for special occasions, including weddings and corporate events.

See more here.

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Picture Connecticut is a weekly Patch series featuring unique images of the state, past and present.

Previous featured images:

• Lafayette Tour Monument, Vernon
• The Pinchot Sycamore, Simsbury
• Bob's Discount Furniture Studios, Manchester