The Byrne family created Planting Fields estate as a country retreat for themselves as Long Island's Gold Coast increasingly became "the place to be." Between 1904 and 1912, Helen MacGregor Byrne, the wife of prominent New York City lawyer James Byrne, purchased six different properties just outside of Oyster Bay. The Queen Anne style Byrne mansion. The properties were collectively referred to as "Upper Planting Fields Farm." In 1906 architect Grosvenor Atterbury designed a Queen Anne style mansion for the family at Planting Fields. He also designed a tennis house overlooking a wooden tennis court in an English country style complimentary to the Byrne mansion. This small structure would later become Mai Rogers Coe's Tea House. Though modest compared to the ambitious landscaping completed during the Coes' tenure, the Byrnes' hired landscape architect James Greenleaf to put in hedges, perennial borders and espaliered fruit trees between 1904 and 1910. The most notable improvements from this period are the Rose Arbor, the Circular Pool and the Green Garden Court.

Related Links Related Articles