High in the Berkshires of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Naumkeag stands not just as a preserved Gilded Age home but as a revolutionary canvas of American landscape design. Shared with the r/centuryhomes community, its story captured imaginations with 140 years of beauty, ambition, and innovation. What began as a lawyer’s summer home in 1885 became, through the bold vision of his daughter Mabel Choate and landscape architect Fletcher Steele, one of the most influential gardens in the country.
A Gilded Beginning with Modern Roots
Joseph Choate, a distinguished New York lawyer born in Salem, Massachusetts, commissioned famed architect Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White to build a 44-room summer “cottage” atop a Berkshires hill. Completed for $35,000—about $1 million today—the Shingle-style home was surrounded by formal Victorian gardens, beautiful but rigid.
Everything changed in 1929 when Choate’s daughter, Mabel, inherited the estate. She had a different vision—one shaped by world travel, bold tastes, and a desire to transform traditional norms. Partnering with Fletcher Steele, a rising star influenced by the 1925 Paris Exposition, she embarked on a multi-decade collaboration that would rewrite American garden history.
Inventing the Modern American Garden
Over the next 30 years, Mabel and Steele transformed Naumkeag’s 48 acres into a masterpiece of modern landscape architecture. They broke from Victorian formality and embraced Art Deco, asymmetry, and bold color. Their most famous creation—the Blue Steps—is a series of white concrete staircases accented with cobalt tiles and birch trees, and it remains one of the most photographed garden features in the country.
Beyond the Blue Steps, the duo designed a serpentine Afternoon Garden, the South Lawn with panoramic views, and a Chinese Garden complete with a moon gate inspired by Mabel’s travels. Steele’s vision blended modernist architecture with organic form, creating gardens that flowed with rhythm and surprise.
A Legacy that Still Grows
When Mabel Choate passed in 1958, she left Naumkeag to The Trustees of Reservations, preserving it for public enjoyment. A $3.5 million restoration, completed in 2013, revived Steele’s designs and returned the property to its full bloom. Today, Naumkeag is one of only two publicly accessible Fletcher Steele gardens in the U.S., attracting visitors and landscape enthusiasts from across the globe.
The original 1885 home, paired with the daring designs that followed, tells a layered story of American taste evolving over decades.
A Masterpiece in Bloom
Naumkeag’s transformation from a Victorian retreat to a modern garden icon inspires r/centuryhomes readers to see landscapes not just as backdrops but as works of art. Through Mabel Choate’s bold eye and Fletcher Steele’s visionary talent, this Berkshires estate became a national treasure—proof that gardens can change the way we see the world.
