Redwood Library Celebrates Completion of Its Pope Allée at Annual Garden Party

Bob Chase & Deborah Velasco

The venerable Redwood Library & Athenaeum on Bellevue Avenue celebrated the completion of the landscaping of its grounds at the 20th annual Redwood Garden Party, held on a lovely Sunday afternoon recently.

Carolyn duPont and Beth Watson of the Library staff checked in the many guests, who included incoming president of the Board of Directors Dr. Garry Fischer and his wife Angela, Admiral Richard and Hope Alexander, Grenville Craig, the Reverend Anne Marie Richards of Trinity Church, author Eileen and Roger Warburton, Ron Fleming, Jim Purviance of St. George’s School, Gay Ben Tré, Douglas and Mary Riggs, and Kit Weschler Williams. Lively music was provided by the Mike Walsh Trio. Outgoing Director Cheryl Helms was unable to attend.

Jack Jefferies with Tina & Admiral Tom Weschler

Sporting wide-brimmed hats (ladies) and boaters ( a few gentlemen), partygoers toasted the completion of a grounds plan begun in 1935, when Hamilton Fish Webster’s committee began to work with John Russell Pope, for whom the project is named. According to the afternoon’s speaker and garden historian Jean Gorham, trees were moved, removed and added over a succession of years, a house that once stood on the grounds was donated and moved. George Washington’s statue arrived in 1932, and was “promoted” to the building’s front in 1935. but now presides on the south terrace. The result is a formal, significant landscape replete with walk ways.

Mary & Jack Ambrogi in summer chapeaux

Richard and Margo Grosvenor and others were seen by Newport Seen strolling the grounds, admiring the symmetry of the gardens and the lovely Summer House.

The Redwood Library, dedicated to the life of the mind (and the occasional party), is hosting a Thursday night Salon series on varied topics, and hosts a
poetry group and a Shakespeare reading society. For information on its collections and schedule of programs, go to www.RedwoodLibrary.org