The Caumsett Foundation

Dedicated to the conservation of

Caumsett State Historic Park Preserve

 

Behind the walled garden to the south was the greenhouse complex.  This extensive array of hothouses was designed by the estate architect John Russell Pope and completed by 1926.


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  1. BulletThe Cornucopia of Caumsett

By Walter Kolos


Caumsett was not only one of the grandest estates in America,  it was also a self-contained and self-supporting entity.  Aside from its legacy of being an elegant and lavish manorial realm, it was a  remarkable agricultural establishment which could  support itself and all of the other properties owned by Marshall Field. The fields at Caumsett on Lloyd Neck provided the Field family and staff of Caumsett with a remarkable bounty.


The four acre walled garden was the agricultural center at Caumsett.  It was here that the vast quantities of vegetables, fruit and flowers were grown.  The high brick walls protected the multitude of cultivars from destructive winds and also captured the heat needed for proper plant growth.  This was a working garden, and within its walls could be found rows of carrots, beets, celery, cabbage, cauliflower, string beans, both bush and pole varieties and peas.  As for fruit, the garden was famous for its blueberries. At one time, George Gillies caught a group of little girls sneaking out of the garden, and asked them just what they were doing there.  "Nothing" was the collective reply, and then he demanded that they stick out their blueberry stained tongues!


In addition to vegetables, there were grapes, pear trees and beds of cutting flowers.  Several men were employed to tend, cultivate and harvest. Even though it was a functional garden plot, it was maintained meticulously and was as attractive as any decorative yard. Everything was planted in an orderly and linear pattern. The soil was weeded, scuffled and aerated.  An overhead piping system provided the necessary irrigation.  Just outside the garden, and on other parts of the estate, there were apple (Baldwins and Macintoshes) and peach orchards. Mr. Gillies actually encouraged the young people living on the place to help themselves to the bounty of the orchard, just as long as they picked the ripest fruit. Crews of men would eventually harvest everything in the late summer and fall.


Behind the walled garden to the south was the greenhouse complex.  This extensive array of hothouses was designed by the estate architect John Russell Pope and completed by 1926.  It is said that Marshall Field did not want the ornate glass domed palm court greenhouses that were very much in fashion on the great estates.  He wanted a group of glass buildings that would be both attractive and functional. In addition to the houses, there were also cold frames for raising seedlings and tender plants.  The whole complex was heated by coal fired steam boilers, and required around the clock supervision by firemen who had to feed the boilers and check the temperatures.  An oil fired, thermostatically controlled system would be introduced only after the war.


The greenhouses were used primarily in the raising of flowers, not vegetables. A vast variety of flowers--including calalillies--were raised here, many from seedlings.  There was also a melon house, where some of the sweetest fruits were suspended from netting.  The flowers grown here were used to decorate the tables and rooms of the Main House and the Winter and Summer Cottages  at Caumsett.   Cut flowers were also brought to the house in New York.  At the Main House, there was even a special floral arranging workroom near the dining room where Mr. Gillies would artistically arrange centerpieces.  There was a man at the greenhouse who also arranged flowers.  All floral pieces would be checked daily by the greenhouse staff ..


Caumsett was famous for its legendary herd of certified Guernsey cattle which provided the estate with the freshest milk and high butterfat cream. All the milking, refrigeration and bottling was  done on the premises. It was distributed to the resident staff, and each husband and wife got a quart of milk, and a quart was figured in for each child. This was all was negotiable according to need.  Caumsett milk was both unpasteurized and unhomogenized.  The cream was described as being the thickest and the yellowest.  The natural bacteria found in the unpasteurized product allowed for certain cheeses and special dairy products to be created .


Chickens were also raised, and it was a major livestock operation on the estate. Curiously, there is virtually no mention made of this important farming operation, nor are there any photographs of the chickens or the coops. The young chicks were purchased from Katay's in Huntington Station,  a very well known and respected poultry purveyor in the area. The birds were slaughtered and most of  the meat went to the main house staff and residential worker's facility (bachelor's quarters, located at the farm group area). 


The ring neck pheasants were raised from eggs by gamekeeper Douglas Marshall.  These birds, of course, would be hunted in the fall. Meat from the hunt was served to dinner guests at the Main House, and also distributed to the staff.  Rumors persisted in the community that many of the excess pheasants were wantonly dumped into the sound after each hunt.


During World War II, with its imposed food shortages and rationing, Caumsett mobilized in its own way by raising beef cattle and pigs.  The cattle were able to graze the vast acreage used by the dairy cattle, and share in the winter stores of hay and corn.  The pigs were penned in at the west end of the estate, being afforded a spacious field and woodland area to roam and root.  Butchers were dispatched to the estate to slaughter and dress both the cattle and swine. Caumsett was very fortunate to be classified as a farm, which enabled it to obtain gasoline and other petroleum products denied to the other estates during wartime.


It must be remembered, however, that even though Caumsett was a very modern twentieth century venture, the technology of that period was nowhere nearly as sophisticated as our own today. The "modern age'' that was so boastfully heralded in the 1920s,  now looks very old fashioned and quaint.


When Caumsett was under construction, electricity had not yet reached Lloyd Neck, and would not be available until the early 1930s.  Electricity was supplied to the property by generators. At this time the need for electrical power was limited to lighting and a few appliances. Refrigeration was provided by iceboxes with ''estate" made ice.  All of the cook stoves were coal fired, as were the furnaces and hot water heaters. In the early years, many residents at Caumsett  washed their laundry by hand in soapstone wash sinks using washboards. The rapid advent of World War II made for many changes--gas stoves, oil heat, washing machines.  The war brought about  many events which would change Caumsett, and eventually destroy  it. The loss of manpower and ever increasing property taxes were the main causes of its demise.


The history of Caumsett  is fascinating not only because of its unparalleled grandeur and productivity, but because of its very short life span in the history of the Long Island estate world.   However, Marshall Field's Caumsett has left an imprint on our community. Its remarkable legacy of self sufficiency is known to few and has gone uncelebrated in our histories and records.