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The Blue Steps, Naumkeag, Stockbridge, Massachusetts
by Wendy Darling

Three more photos of the steps.

From Landscape Design + More:

Of all the grand gestures at Naumkeag, The iconic Blue Steps are perhaps the most celebrated. Simply breathtaking,… every connoisseur of garden design should experience them.  But what I found of special interest are the grand views, the linkage between spaces, the changes of perspective, the intrigue and sensorial journeys you embark upon as you move from one space to the next.

Filed under the blue steps blue steps stairs staircase landscape design landscape architecture garden design art deco 1930s 1937s fletcher steele stockbridge massachusetts naumkeag

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The Blue Steps, Naumkeag, Stockbridge, Massachusettsby Wendy Darling Back in August, while visiting my parents, I was fortunate enough to visit Naumkeag, a great 1880s estate in far western Massachusetts and lovingly maintained by the Trustees for Reservations. The house is 1880s and the original grounds were too, but then starting a couple of decades later, the lady of the house, the daughter of the original couple who had it built, teamed up with a modern landscape designer Fletscher Steele, who created, among other things, this gorgeous outdoor Deco staircase, known at the Blue Steps. They were a big deal, design wise.  From the Library of Ameircan Landscape History: Among Steele’s last designs for Naumkeag were the Blue Steps (c. 1937), now one of the best-known images in American garden history. To realize the feature, he used industrial materials—cast concrete and metal pipe—and the Italian Renaissance form of the water staircase, planted with lithe white birches that uncannily mimic the stair railings. The fairytale descent offers a witty reconciliation of the formal-informal debate dominating the period. The Blue Steps form an exhilarating, almost Mannerist conclusion to the stylistic explorations of the American Country Place Era. A couple more photos coming up.

The Blue Steps, Naumkeag, Stockbridge, Massachusetts
by Wendy Darling

Back in August, while visiting my parents, I was fortunate enough to visit Naumkeag, a great 1880s estate in far western Massachusetts and lovingly maintained by the Trustees for Reservations. The house is 1880s and the original grounds were too, but then starting a couple of decades later, the lady of the house, the daughter of the original couple who had it built, teamed up with a modern landscape designer Fletscher Steele, who created, among other things, this gorgeous outdoor Deco staircase, known at the Blue Steps. They were a big deal, design wise. 

From the Library of Ameircan Landscape History:

Among Steele’s last designs for Naumkeag were the Blue Steps (c. 1937), now one of the best-known images in American garden history. To realize the feature, he used industrial materials—cast concrete and metal pipe—and the Italian Renaissance form of the water staircase, planted with lithe white birches that uncannily mimic the stair railings. The fairytale descent offers a witty reconciliation of the formal-informal debate dominating the period. The Blue Steps form an exhilarating, almost Mannerist conclusion to the stylistic explorations of the American Country Place Era.

A couple more photos coming up.

Filed under the blue steps blue steps staircase stairs landscape architecture landscape design garden design naumkeag massachusetts art deco 1930s 1937s