An avid student of horticulture, Sallie Dooley — whom society considered a grand dame of garden making — directed the planting of Maymont’s gardens. (Photo courtesy Maymont)
Not long after James and Sallie Dooley hired Richmond architects Noland and Baskervill to create a classical Italian garden on their English-style pastoral estate, the design team embarked on a research trip abroad to study the elaborate Renaissance landscapes their clients found so appealing. Noland and Baskervill returned to Richmond with a promise: “We will create under Virginia skies, on the hills above the fall of the James, the same effects as the palatial estates of Southern Europe.”
In 1886, the Dooleys purchased 100 acres of tree-lined pastureland overlooking the James River, where they built an opulent Gilded Age mansion surrounded by gently rolling lawns, groves of trees and classical architectural elements. They called it Maymont.
“Estates like Maymont were a sign of great wealth and status during the Gilded Age,” explains Kathy Garrett-Cox, Maymont’s curator and director of historical resources. The Dooleys, like others in their social circle, were passionate about European art and culture and wanted their home and its gardens to reflect their interests as well as their financial standing.
Noland and Baskervill envisioned a stone archway as the entrance to the Italian Garden. Inscribed with the words “Via Florum” or “flowering way,” the arch “marked the transition from the estate’s informal parkland into the enchanted world of the Italian Garden,” Garrett-Cox says. A long, stately colonnade with a canopy of climbing roses proceeded east from the archway, ending in a copper-clad dome.
From the main level of the Italian Garden, three terraces descended a south-facing slope toward the James River. On the Cascade terrace, a stone outcropping was transformed into a waterfall — “an exact replica of the waterfall at the Villa Torlonia near Rome,” Garrett-Cox notes. A stone balustrade surrounded a small courtyard on the Promenade terrace. And finally, the Secret Garden, “which offered as much privacy as a young couple could find,” she says. The 1.5-acre space with sprawling views of the river below was embellished with urns, fountains, statues and art from the Dooleys’ private collection — all reflections of the era’s grand, highly decorated and eclectic style, which drew heavily from the art and architecture of the Italian Renaissance.
An avid student of horticulture, Sallie Dooley directed the planting and maintenance of the Maymont estate. Under her care, the Italian Garden became a lush landscape of manicured lawns and formal parterres (planting beds) that she filled with her favorite pink and blue flowers.
Because the Dooleys traveled during the summer, plantings in the Italian Garden were designed primarily for springtime enjoyment. Period photographs reveal budding peonies around the classic Venetian gazebo, acquired by the couple during their travels in Italy. Daffodils bloomed in early spring, followed by a flush of roses, lilies in summer and asters in the fall.
Today, because Maymont is open to visitors year-round, the parterre beds are planted with a variety of long-blooming annuals each spring, in color schemes designed to complement the perennials that once grew in Mrs. Dooley’s original garden, including catmint, herbaceous peonies and bearded iris. “Other plantings, such as osmanthus, Japanese quince, wintersweet and star magnolia, are actually existing plantings from the Dooley era,” Garrett-Cox notes — still playing their part in the pageantry of the Dooley’s Gilded Age garden.
