In the children’s book The Secret Garden, a determined little girl discovers a once-beloved garden hidden behind an ivy-covered wall. Today, visitors to a corner of the Bronx find a gate that gives way to a 28-acre horticultural masterpiece that is just as delightful.
Wave Hill, the favorite public garden of Nashville landscape architect Ben Page, graces the grounds of an old estate, built in 1843, along the bluffs of the Hudson River. “The gardens are not enormous,” he says. “You can walk them easily, and they are densely packed with what I call jewelry -- the best varieties.”
Out-of-towners might not expect to find such a spot so close to Midtown Manhattan, and neither did Page on his first of many visits, almost 20 years ago. A subway dropped him and a friend in the Bronx, where a short walk led to an unassuming parking lot.
“Then, we entered a fantasyland of horticulture and landscape,” he remembers. “I had no idea such a sophisticated garden was in the city.”
Page’s friend led him to the pergola, which sits on the precipice overlooking the Hudson River and the dramatic Palisades bluffs. “It put the whole thing in context,” he said. That feeling of discovery on the first visit continued with each exploration
of Wave Hill, given to New York City in 1960 by the last owners of the estate.
