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Nutley’s
Versailles
This Essex County property’s gardens
make it a New Jersey treasure
WRITTEN BY CINDY SCHWEICH HANDLER
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANNE-MARIE CARUSO
F
ans of France’s Versailles, Italy’s Tivoli and
England’s Kew Gardens: You’ll be interested
to know that there’s an estate with lush,
art-filled acres that’s much closer to home.
Nutley residents Silas Mountsier and
Graeme Hardie (below) combined three
parcels of land to create an opulent landscape full
of trees, grasses and plants, intersecting paths and
sculptures — not to mention two homes for themselves,
and a couple of other multi-purpose buildings. Their
gardens have been open to the public as part of the
Garden Conservatory’s Open Days program, and
provided the backdrop for fundraisers given by local
nonprofits such as Succeed2gether and the Nutley
Family Service Bureau. An extensive traveler, “I’m an
anthropologist, and I like crafts,” Hardie says, “while
Silas’ house is filled with antiquities.” The homeowners
were kind enough to give us a tour.
THE LONG VIEW
(Left) A view looking towards Mountsier’s home, which his family
purchased shortly after World War II, from the rear of the property.
Built in 1890, it faces the street, and the garden surrounding it is dom-
inated by oak trees, many of them 200-300 years old. The pruned
trees that Hardie refers to as “garden soldiers” are English hornbeams;
stone pillars frame a more recent garden that features rose bushes.
Above, Mountsier and Hardie smile outside the greenhouse, part of
the second property that was added to the original in 1970.
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MONTCLAIR MAGAZINE FALL 2017
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