Heirloom Gardens at Villa Louis

Members of the Dousman family enjoying a card
party on the park-like grounds of the Villa Louis

In the mid-1840s the Hercules Dousman family began developing the estate that would evolve into the Villa Louis. Throughout its evolution the property was always considered to be an elegant and stylish country home, and much attention was paid to the grounds surrounding the mansion and outbuildings. Since the mid 1990s the mansion and office interiors have undergone extensive restoration to re-create the house as it appeared in the mid to late 1890s. Documentation for the restoration has come from many sources including letters, bills and receipts, and photographs preserved in the large Dousman family archives.  Similar records document the changing landscape, and Villa Louis gardeners have worked to re-create the paths and planting beds that ornamented the estate grounds at the close of the 19th century.

Photographs reveal that the Villa Louis grounds were designed to be a park-like setting. An ornamental fence and hedging separated the broad lawn from the surrounding streets and village. Major landscape features such as the artesian well and fountain (visible in the background in the above photo), fish ponds, grotto and a small gazebo provided a series of focal points linked by a network of gravel pathways. Specimen plantings of unusual trees such as white pine, catalpa, Japanese lilac and weeping mulberry were found throughout the grounds.  Some of these specimens survive from the 19th century while others have been replaced with new plantings. The gravel pathways further created junctions and corners that were highlighted with a series of small beds that combined perennial and annual plantings to create small spots of color and texture. A number of these beds are geometric — including a star, a diamond and a large circle. One popular combination of plants that has been duplicated in the restored landscape features cannas in the center surrounded by rows of multi-colored coleus. Red and green coleus appear again along the grand walkway leading to the mansion's front door. Here the plants are arranged in two long ribbon beds, a popular Victorian treatment that appears in a Villa Louis photograph from 1898.

In addition to the ornamental trees and flowerbeds, the Villa Louis also maintains an heirloom vegetable garden. Plant varieties are based on seed purchases documented by bills and receipts from the 1880s and '90s. Additional plants appropriate to the period help flesh out the garden which provides produce for the Villa Louis kitchen, including the Breakfast in a Victoran Kitchen programs in September and October.