The Garden Club of Gloucester & Mathews
HISTORIC GLOUCESTER GARDENS & ART
SATURDAY, APRIL 20 AND SUNDAY, APRIL 21, 2024
Gloucester will feature two separate tours, each requiring its own ticket and each an art lover’s delight. Their owners have cultivated beautiful gardens and collected paintings, sculptures, and objets d’art in their travels. Visitors will want to linger and take in the variety and quality of these collections, impressive in their sheer numbers.
The Saturday tour features three art-filled homes and their gardens which overlook the scenic Ware River as well as the new Fine Arts Museum of Gloucester. The Sunday tour will feature the Gardens of Goshen, which are expansive and filled with world-class sculptures by renowned artists tucked into small gardens and spread across the sweeping lawn fronting the Ware River. Please note, admission to the Gardens of Goshen requires a separate ticket.
SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 2024
10:00 AM – 5:00 PM
RIVER PROMISE
River Promise, overlooking the Ware River, was built in 1987 in a classic Victorian style. In 2005, the current owners embarked on a massive project of planting over 100 trees on the property including specialty conifers, elms, crepe myrtles, Japanese maples, and a grove of bald cypress with knees projecting around the base of the trunks. With a shared love of gardening, they installed and cultivated beds around the house and pool, island gardens, and a shade garden with a lovely pond.
In 2018, the owner began a significant residence renovation, embracing the high ceilings and intricate woodwork while bringing light and fabulous color and patterns to the interior space. Visitors will notice stenciled and custom-painted designs on floors and patterned painting and wallpaper on the ceilings in many of the rooms. The large scale of the home accommodates and complements the owner’s art collection. The kitchen, which was renovated and expanded, opens onto a deep and inviting wrap-around porch. René Haeger Wenleder, owner
The Mazzocco Home
THE MAZZOCCO HOME
Built in 1990, the Mazzocco home is a modern take on a traditional house with spare, clean lines creating an open and airy feeling. A large wrap-around porch and the main rooms offer sweeping views of the Ware River. In 2019, the owners added a large kitchen with an open plan.
The owners’ art collection focuses on American artists including paintings by the Pennsylvania Impressionist Rae Sloan Bredin (Katherine Mazzocco’s grandfather), Vaclav Vytlacil, and Virginia folk artist, Nancy Thomas. The property covers approximately 11 acres and includes gardens installed by the original owner, which the current owners having been restoring. With the assistance of the original garden designer from the 1990s and the original owner’s diary, they have brought new life to the outdoor spaces including more than 4,000 daffodils, planted by the original owner, and added to by Katherine, both lovers of daffodils. Katherine and Raymond Mazzocco, owners
Paget
PAGET
Overlooking an inlet of the Ware River, this Federal-style house was built in 1928 and named Paget in honor of the owner’s Page ancestors, among the early settlers in Gloucester County. The main level was initially designed as one large room surrounding a central chimney, making it ideal for use in the 1930s as part of a summer camp for boys. In 2013, the current owners embarked on a ten-year restoration and reimagination of the property. They have added walls and decorative details to create many charming rooms in the first-floor space, replicating and embellishing the original millwork. The interior serves as the setting for their collection of antiques, paintings, and decorative arts.
The surrounding gardens are anchored by oaks, magnolias, and pines with an understory of natural plantings. Azaleas, rhododendrons, boxwoods, and fruit trees accent the property, as well as extensive beds of spring bulbs, ferns, and perennials. A Williamsburg-style well house with fountains and gardens adjacent to the drive was designed and built by the owners in 2020. Statues, planters, columns, and antique stone pieces complement the gardens and landscape. Barry Laine Aldrich and Whittier Thompson Brown, owners
FINE ARTS MUSEUM OF GLOUCESTER
(6894 Main Street, Gloucester)
Opened in June of 2023, the museum provides a home for the Cook Foundation’s acquisition of more than 300 works and artifacts by Kacey Carneal (1935-2022), a self-taught folk artist who painted at her home in Gloucester every day for nearly fifty years. Her work includes oil on wood and canvas in a folk-art style characterized by her painting of the frames as extensions of the works. During Historic Garden Week, visitors can immerse themselves in a Carneal retrospective, Back Home, featuring 90 works spanning the 1970s through 2020.
From the Museum, visitors will want to walk and enjoy the murals and sculpture in Gloucester Village, all celebrating Gloucester’s culture and heritage. The murals include Narcissi by Louise Jones, and T.C. Walker by Michael Rosato honoring T.C. Walker, who was born a slave and became the first African American to practice law in Gloucester.
TOUR INFORMATION:
Visit www.vagardenweek.org/tours/gloucester/, Facebook- Historic Garden Week in Gloucester VA or on Instagram-@historicgardenweekgloucester. May also contact Chair - Margaret Singleton and Co-Chair - Nancy Messbarger at gloucester@vagardenweek.org
Lunch: Local restaurants on Historic Main Street, Gloucester, and Nuttall’s Store, 6495 Ware Neck Road, Gloucester/Ware Neck.
Important: Access to the three homes is via shuttle only. It also involves considerable stairs and upper floors. Not suitable for anyone with mobility issues.
Tickets: $50 pp sold online and in advance only at VAGardenWeek.org. or $60 pp day-of-tour ticket available at VAGardenWeek.org only. Ticket includes admission to three homes and a museum, four sites total. The Sunday tour at the Gardens at Goshen is not included in this ticket.
Parking and Shuttles:
Shuttles are required to access all properties except the Fine Arts Museum of Gloucester in downtown Gloucester where parking is available. The number of shuttles has been increased significantly from previous tours to make the experience as pleasant as possible.
Shuttle access to River Promise and Paget is from TC Walker Education Center, 6099 TC Walker Road, Gloucester with last shuttle at 3:30 PM. Shuttles take ten minutes to River Promise and five minutes to Paget. Shuttle access to the Mazzocco home is from Ware River Yacht Club, 5992 Ware Neck Road, Gloucester/Ware Neck with last shuttle at 4:00 PM. Shuttles take five minutes. You may begin the tour at either shuttle location.
Special Activities:
• Refreshments will be served in the Paget gardens between 2:00 PM and 4:00 PM
• Dan Lonergan, arborist from Bartlett Tree Experts, will be at the Mazzocco home from 10:30 AM to
2:00 PM. Free tree seedlings will be distributed.
• Master Gardener tours and an Art in the Garden exhibit by the gallery, Arts on Main, will be available
in the gardens at Brent and Becky’s, 7900 Daffodil Lane, Gloucester. Please contact (804) 693-3996 or
www.brentandbeckysbulbs.com for further information.
SUNDAY, APRIL 21, 2024
10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
TICKET INCLUDES ADMISSION TO THE GARDENS AT GOSHEN ONLY.
THE GARDENS AT GOSHEN
With its commanding view from the head of the Ware River, Goshen (c.1750) was originally the home of the Tomkies family. The name Goshen means a “place of plenty.” The current owner and her husband purchased the property in 1987 and embarked on restoring the house and gardens. Although diminished in size since colonial times, the property remains an enormous 400 acres with the lawns and gardens comprising approximately 40 acres. The gardens range from full sun to full shade and formal to informal.
The formal gardens are reached through an allée of English boxwood and crepe myrtles leading from the main house—portions of the formal gardens date to the original landscape design. Midway down on either side is a circular planting of Justin Brouwers boxwood, to the west of which is a long shade perennial border of Lenten rose, and to the east, a sunny mixed border anchored by a Burford holly and planted with flowering quince, perennials, and annuals.
Continuing down the main English boxwood allée, visitors will reach the camellia garden. This area was once an intentionally planted pine timber forest. Acts of Mother Nature, most notably a tornado in 2005 that decimated parts of the forest and tore off part of the roof of the house, and deliberate thinning of the forest, have opened up this area of the gardens. Here, irregularly shaped planting beds embrace mature trees, woody shrubs, perennials, and annuals.
Throughout the gardens there are places to sit and reflect, and world-class sculptures by renowned artists tucked into the gardens and spread across the sweeping lawn fronting the Ware Rive, all complementing the overall landscape design. Like all gardens, these are a work in progress led by the owner’s devotion and horticulturist’s expertise. Goshen is under a historic easement. Adrianne Joseph, owner
TOUR INFORMATION:
Important:
This tour requires considerable walking over uneven terrain. Not suitable for anyone with mobility issues.
Tickets:
$30 pp sold online and in advance only at VAGardenWeek.org. Limited tickets and timed entry. The Sunday ticket is for the Gardens at Goshen only.
Parking:
Available at the property. Parking could be distant from the gardens.
Special Activities:
• Horticulturist on staff and Master Gardeners onsite all day.
• Music in the garden from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM.
• Refreshments will be served from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM.