Some ninety miles north of New York City and a couple of miles east of the small town of Millbrook, sits one of the most beautiful and unique gardens in the world: two hundred acres of woods and gardens wound around a forty acre lake cradled within hills. A unique formal garden disguised as an enchanted landscape.
The story of Innisfree is the story of an intellectual vision so incredibly persistent that, from its creator, Walter Beck, through photographer William Corey, Innisfree’s magnetism cannot be explained away by mere reasoning. It requires taking a stroll, over serpentine, interlacing garden arteries. It is a walk through a picture, into a series of episodes, like Alice through the looking glass. (From the Introduction to: Innisfree: America’s Greatest Garden)
I was invited by the Innisfree Foundation to spend six months living in and photographing this marvelous garden. Given unlimited access, the only stipulation was that I photograph with the ultra large format 8 X 20 camera, which interpreted the scope of the garden with unparalleled precision. These four images are the first of fifty that will eventually be released of this work.
