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Harvey S. Ladew Born amidst New York City's social world, Harvey Ladew spoke French before he spoke English and was treated to boyhood drawing lessons from curators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1929, at the age of 43, foxhunting drew him to this property in rural Maryland. During the 1930s Ladew added wings to the house, renovated outbuildings before beginning work on the gardens. Then, with the help of local farmers, Ladew carved 22 acres of gardens out of fields previously used for crops and livestock and set to work transforming Pleasant Valley Farm into "the most outstanding topiary garden in America," as described by the Garden Club of America. Late in life, Ladew determined to find a way of preserving his creation for all to enjoy. The result is Ladew Topiary Gardens, Inc., a non-profit organization whose mission is "to maintain and promote the gardens, house and facilities in keeping with the creative spirit of Harvey S. Ladew for the public benefit and for educational, scientific and cultural pursuits." Ladew Topiary Gardens opened to the public in 1971. Since then, the Board of Trustees developed a variety of special events to assist in maintaining this uniquely beautiful historic house and gardens. Currently Ladew Gardens hosts approximately 30 annual events which include spring and fall programs, the My Lady's Manor Steeplechase Races, the Summer Concert Series and Children's Day. His Life In 1919, after having served in World War I, Ladew began a 20-year tradition of spending every winter fox hunting in England-"The most wonderful thing I've ever done," he recalled later. In England, he hobnobbed with aristocrats, was a guest in numerous stately homes and visited countless gardens, many designed by Gertrude Jekyll. World War II made Ladew's English visits impractical and in 1940 he bought a Florida house near Delray Beach, which he named Pied à Mer. Ladew refurbished the house and gardens in his own unique manner and basked in Florida's warm sunshine for the next 30 winters. The House Pleasant Valley Farm included a frame farmhouse, which had been built by the Scarff family. Ladew immediately expanded it, adding a service wing and garage to the south and a series of rooms for entertaining to the north. One of the most unusual rooms he added is the Oval Library (complete with a secret door). Ladew kept several of the many outbuildings he found on the farm, adapting them to new uses. One old barn, for example, became his art studio-the former smokehouse is now the Card Room. The Garden Garden rooms — devoted to a single color, a single plant or a single theme — had been the rage in England when Ladew started his numerous foxhunting visits. He was among the first Americans to recreate them on this side of the Atlantic. He had discovered the art of topiary in England in the 1920s when he saw a clipped hunt scene atop a hedge in Gloucestershire. This resulted in the best-known feature of his Maryland garden. Famous Friends The pages of his guest books reverberate with names such as T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia), Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, Noel Coward, Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable, Somerset Maugham, Colette, Italian contessas, Belgian and French counts, and members of the English Royal Family. It is a tribute to Harvey Ladew's charm and vibrant personality that so many different individuals chose to befriend him.
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Few more colorful figures embellish American cultural history than the late Harvey S. Ladew (1887-1976). As traveler, artist, foxhunter and creator of an extraordinary garden, Ladew filled the nearly 90 years of his life richly, creatively, and above all, amusingly.
Harvey Smith Ladew II, "gardener, sporting art patron and good companion" (as the English magazine Tatler dubbed him) was born at his parents' New York City townhouse on April 6, 1887. His family was financially comfortable thanks to his grandfather's leather business. Besides his younger sister, Elise, who married William Russell Grace, Ladew's favorite relative was probably his uncle, E. Berry Wall. Nicknamed "the King of Dudes" by society gossip columnists, Uncle Berry lived in France and Ladew often visited him there.
An ardent foxhunter since 1914, Harvey Ladew spent much time early in his life riding horses on Long Island. By the late 1920s this familiar turf had become too built up and he began to look for more open countryside. Ladew found it here, in the My Lady's Manor section of Harford and Baltimore Counties. In November 1929, he bought Pleasant Valley Farm, a 200+ acre property bordering the hunt club, "where I have been happy ever since," he wrote in the 1960s.
With the house mostly completed by 1937, Ladew turned his attention to the grounds. Thanks to his trips to England and Italy, he knew what sort of garden he wanted. It was to have two cross axes to allow for the long vistas he had seen in Italian gardens with "garden rooms" off each axis. The axes meet in Ladew's oval swimming pool, placed in the center of the Great Bowl.
Thanks to Ladew's dozens of interests-and assisted by his wit and love of life-his world was filled with an astonishingly varied group of friends. As Billy Baldwin wrote, "one of Harvey's eccentricities was that he was not interested in society, per se. He was interested in all kinds of people."