IN THE BEGINNING
The Asharoken Garden Club was founded by Laura Safford Stewart in 1924. She is also known by her married name, Mrs. John Wood Stewart. Mr. Stewart was the owner of the Stewart Silk Company, one of the largest silk manufacturing companies on the east coast. While Mr. Steward managed the finances, Laura was an equal partner contributing guidance on textiles that appealed to the garment industry and women. The couple adopted two infant sons in 1895. The infants were named Pliny Fisk Stewart and Lewis Morton Stewart. In an interesting historical note, Lewis, known by his middle name "Morton" was named for Laura's cousin Levi P. Morton, who was Vice President of the United States under President Benjamin Harrison, and was later Governor of New York. Oddly enough, Levi had been offered to run as James Garfield's VP eight years earlier but had declined. Had he accepted, he would have beocme President of the United States instead of Chester Arthur when Garfield was assassinated.
Laura was born in 1847, and at an early age she mastered the craft of needlework, which was an important pastime for women of that era. In 1885, Laura founded the “Needlework Guild of America” to promote the craft. Thousands of women joined her organization, creating local chapters nationwide. Meeting once a week to share and discuss needlework, dressmaking, and the daily toils of life, the Guild became a women’s support system for socializing, airing grievances, obtaining guidance and sharing ideas. Soon after, the needlework guild branched out and she created the “National Plant, Fruit, and Flower Guild”. With two guilds, Laura soon enticed other prominent women to serve on her National Board of Directors, including First Lady Edith Roosevelt, and her cousin by marriage, Anna Street Morton. By 1910, Laura Safford Stewart’s guilds had over one million members nationwide.
In 1909, Laura purchased a Long Island Sound side lot and developed a grand design for the property. Although the Stewarts had a home in New York City, Laura’s aim was to create a garden oasis to showcase her talent as a nationally recognized horticulturist. She chose Asharoken for the openness and proximity to the city. Unlike other properties on the beach where the dwelling house was the main feature, she designed the landscaping as the defining feature of the estate. The house was secondary to the garden and designed to be just another piece of sculpture. As different features were built in the garden, they received names such as the grand fountain and Roman ruins. The house was given a name, Solana, “The Pink Palace”. Designed in Italionate style, it incorporated garden features deliberately built into the structure like statues, trellises and fountains. Over the years, Laura added adjacent properties culminating in an Italianate garden over five acres in size with 350 feet of LI Sound frontage. By 1916, these gardens were known throughout the horticulture community and often featured in newspapers and magazines of the era where they were described to be among the finest gardens on the East Coast since
they contained over 1,000 specimen plants.
In 1917, World War 1 broke out and both she and John insisted that their sons join the war effort. Both boys served in the Army in France while Laura spent the next two years traveling nationwide as a speaker to mobilize local chapters of the National Needlework Guild to supply blankets and coats for the troops. The effort of her Guild was second only to the efforts of the American Red Cross, and once the war was over, President Woodrow Wilson called upon Laura to mobilize her other Guild (The National Plant, Fruit, and Flower Guild) in a government effort to assist the French to replant and refoliate entire towns
left barren by the war.
In 1922, John Wood Stewart died and a heartbroken Laura turned her focus to start new chapters of the guilds locally. In 1924 and at 75 years old, she founded the Huntington Garden Club and the Asharoken Garden Club where she took an active role and imbued the club with its spirit and mission of contributing to those in need through our knowledge and diverse talents. In 1925, Laura lent her support for Asharoken to break away from the Town and to become an incorporated village. After her death in 1931, Laura’s beautiful garden estate was sold.
Adapted from an Asharoken Newsletter by Village Historian Edward Carr
The Asharoken Garden Club continues Laura Safford Stewart's legacy today by:
- Annual donations of floral mug arrangements for the house bound Huntington senior citizens
- Spring Planting and musical entertainment at the Northport Veterans Hospital
- Library program promoting gardening, conservation and the environment at Northport/East Northport Public Libraries.
- Holiday decorating at Visiting Nurse Service of Suffolk, Hospice House.
- Holiday wreaths for municipal, police, and local fire departments
- Memorial wreaths for US Fleet Week and Cow Harbor Warriors
- Annual scholarship in the amount of $2000 to a Northport High School student for educational studies related to the environment and conservation
- Annual donations of $1000 to local groups and organizations doing valuable work in our community
From the beginning, the Club's tradition was one of community service. During the Depression, milk was donated to school children. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter boxes of food were distributed to needy families. Money was donated towards the purchase of an ambulance for the Village of Northport. Boxes of goods and clothing were sent to England and Greece after World War II. Even the dogwoods that abound in our area may be some of the 1800 that were donated and planted by Club members. Ecological causes were always important to members, who created programs to help eliminate ragweed, poison ivy, and tent caterpillars.
PAST GLORIES
Before membership grew to its present roster of more than sixty, meetings were held in the homes of members. Marie L. Saniel, Club Secretary from 1929 to 1935, wrote these poetic descriptions of their homes and gardens in her minutes.
"Down under the cool, dark aisles of forest trees with an undergrowth of fine laurel and rhododendrons into the exquisite valley of Northport Harbor with is silver flint of blue waters—along hedges of rambling rose bushes to the green rolling lawn...wended the Asharoken Garden Club on July 30th."
"So through the broad gates and up the winding roadway, with glimpses of rose trees and refreshingly cool and picturesque banks of rhododendrons, laurel, and pachysandra, thirty seven members and some guests wended their way to be graciously greeted at the entrance by our hospitable host and hostess. As we passed through the halls into the spacious rooms, we were delighted by the glory of color displayed in the various vases filled with velvety dual-toned gladioli, surpassing, in beauty, any word description."
"It was a warm day and we felt grateful for the long screened-in verandah which admitted every fugitive breeze and opened out on a vista of beauty in the great, old trees, and the long pool over the edge of which flirted a small childish figure evidently greatly enjoying the exploration of its mysterious depths."
"While the lure of Mr. and Mrs. Brower’s gardens are always sufficient to overcome the natural inertia incident to the dog-days of August, two other contributing factors made our afternoon still more interesting. One was the fact that Mrs. Fullerton of Farmingdale Agricultural College was to address the club; the other, that the Flower Show of September 6th began to loom large and many preliminary details were to be settled. So, through the broad gates and up the winding roadway, with glimpses of rose trees and refreshingly cool and picturesque banks of rhododendrons, laurel, and pachysandra, thirty seven members and some guests wended their way to be graciously greeted at the entrance by our hospitable host and hostess. As we passed through the halls into the spacious rooms, we were delighted by the glory of color displayed in the various vases filled with velvety dual-toned gladioli, surpassing, in beauty, any word description."
". . .as on this sultry afternoon we drove toward the home of Mrs. Bowen those cool glosses of silver slashed and scintillated as the errant sunbeams streaked through the shadows and were reflected back from the remarkable laurel forests on the left while that most perfect of hedges—delicate, graceful and feathery, yielded at any motion to the breeze thus enhancing the cool darkness to the entrance on the right. Succeeding these came the rose-buds in full regalia on one side and on the other the Harbor of Cold Spring, blue and mystic.. . ."
"With white cumulus clouds scudding along before a mighty breeze and magic sunlight, the surpassingly beautiful scene at Sunwood gilded picture after picture which would have tantalized an artist and certainly baffled a verbal description. Seduced into an entrancing interior by King Boris—the wind—we left the enticing gardens and lily pond to feast our eyes at leisure on the lovely flowers in profusion and the distractingly beautiful views from the many window vantage points—over the white flecked arch of blue waters and the perfect curves of the snowy beaches and woodlands. How our horizon enlarged!"
"Dainty refreshments were then served and then, at the request of a dear little girl, Mrs. Morse's grandchild, the members repaired to the lovely lawn and gardens where brilliant phlox attracted the eye and mosses of mignonettes made fragrant the air while majestic spruces pinnacled upward and great cedars cast dull shadows on the smooth sward. There were some glorious petunias and many interesting plants but none more than the Hydrangeas with the downy whiteness of the underleaf. As the suns rays were glowingly reflected by prismatic waters of the harbor,we realized that a most successful and memorable meeting had come to a close."
"It was understood by the club that our dear President, Mrs. Burling, who has carried the banner of the club unfalteringly to popularity and success, had declined a renomination owing to the fact that last fall she had felt her strength gong under her many duties and while the winter had given regeneration, the recent great honor bestowed up her as President of the national Florence Nightingale Society added greatly to her duties... Presentation of a bouquet of roses to Mrs. Burley—a rose from each club member—with each carrying a message of appreciation was made and acknowledged in her happy way."
"The meeting was a never to be forgotten joy to all. We feel that for the perfection of detail and for the artistic accomplishment we owe to our hostess, a great debt of gratitude. When we passed the lovely entrance of reception room to the elaborately prepared and delicious collation,we felt that after this luxury, only decadence could await us—were we to trust examples from history. Again, we thank you, most gracious hostess."