The Story of Skylands Manor

 

The New Jersey Botanical Garden at Skylands in Ringwood State Park is the centerpiece of a property assembled by Francis Lynde Stetson (1846-1920) from pioneer farmsteads in the Ramapo Mountains. Stetson named his country estate “Skylands.” He maintained a stylish mansion of native granite, a working farm with more than thirty outbuildings, gardens and a vast lawn that included a nine-hole golf course. The gardens cover an extensive area on both sides of Maple Avenue. The Terrace Gardens behind the manor house and the flower gardens across Maple Avenue are an easy and delightful walk

Skylands was sold in 1922 to Clarence McKenzie Lewis (1877-1959), an investment banker and trustee of the New York Botanical Garden. Lewis wanted the property for a summer residence, but in the process decided to make Skylands a botanical showplace. The Stetson house was torn down and was replaced by an imposing Tudor mansion of native granite. Lewis engaged the most prominent landscape architects of his day to design the gardens. Most of the trees now framing the house were planted at that time, including the magnificent copper beeches. Lewis stressed symmetry, color, texture, form and fragrance in his gardens. For thirty years, Lewis collected plants from all over the world and from New Jersey roadsides.
The result is one of the finest collections of plants in the state.

In 1966, New Jersey purchased 1,117 acres of the Skylands property from Shelton College. The Skylands Garden was the first property purchased under the Green Acres program. In March 1984, Governor Thomas Kean designated the 96-acres surroundings the manor house as the State’s official botanical garden. Included among the Annual Garden are the Crab Apple Vista, the Perennial Border, the Lilac Garden, the Peony Garden, the Summer Garden, the Azaleas Garden, the Magnolia Walk, Octagonal Garden, and the Winter Garden.