The Chimneys is home to one of Frederick Law Olmsted Jr.’s finest surviving Italianate gardens. On a 1902 commission by Boston financier and philanthropist Gardiner Martin Lane and his wife, Emma, Olmsted designed the garden as a series of distinct rooms, forming sequential terraces in an architectural response to the downward sloping topography. The Water Terrace is positioned high on the oceanside bluff and features a rose-covered pergola, an ocean view shelter, and a stunning, 2800 square foot, five-pool water garden inspired by the sixteenth-century Villa Lante in Viterbo, Italy. From this elevation, a series of granite steps descends through the garden’s other rooms: a shady Overlook Terrace, a Lavender Terrace, a white-themed Tea Terrace, a substantial Vegetable Garden, a Crabapple Allée and, finally, a semi-enclosed Rose Garden.
In its prime (1906 – 1935), the Lane garden was featured in Louise Shelton’s Beautiful Gardens in America, the November 1907 issue of American Homes and Gardens, and numerous
