Timeline

1960: Lawyer John P. Humes (later Ambassador to Austria from 1969 to 1975) and his wife, Jean, visit Kyoto. Inspired by their visit, they spend the next 4 years transforming a wooded corner of their Mill Neck estate into a meditative Japanese landscape, including an imported tea house. They engage a Japanese landscape designer and his wife, Douglas and Joan DeFaya, to design and direct the installation of the original two-acre section of the garden.

 

1980: Humes forms the Humes Japanese Garden Foundation for the purposes of maintenance and preservation of the Stroll Garden.

1982: Humes engages Stephen Morrell as curator to rehabilitate and expand the garden, and to facilitate its transition from a private to public garden.

Stephen Morrell and John Humes, 1982

1985: John P. Humes dies and the management of the garden passes to the Humes Japanese Garden Foundation. The Japanese Stroll Garden opens to the public.

1993: With the garden struggling financially, the Garden Conservancy assumes management of the garden.

1997: Stroll Garden receives a challenge grant from the Japan World Exposition Commemorative Fund. The Garden Conservancy works with the Humes Foundation and the Friends of the Humes Japanese Stroll Garden to raise matching funds.

1998: Funds raised in 1997 allow for the rejuvenation of the waterfall, a key feature of the garden, and construction of a masonry wall to mitigate road noise.

1998: The New York Times features the John P. Humes Japanese Stroll Garden, calling it a "Hidden Jewel."

2000: Mrs. Humes, the garden's co-creator, passes away, adding funds to bolster a diminishing endowment for the garden.

2000: Peter Wechsler constructs a new entrance gate from native Eastern red cedar, using traditional carpentry methods of the master temple builders of Japan.

2001: With funds from the Freeman Foundation, the Stroll Garden begins its education outreach program to bring the Japanese garden into the classroom.

2009: Transfer of an additional parcel of land from the Humes family brings the Stroll Garden’s total acreage up to seven, of which four acres are under cultivation.

2010: The Gerry Charitable Trust awards the garden a grant to restore its tea house. Three years of funding is obtained from New York State‘s Zoos, Botanic Gardens and Aquariums fund for the ongoing care of the garden.

2012: The tea house, meticulously restored by Peter Wechsler with the assistance of Humes Garden volunteers, is dedicated and named chikufuan, or "bamboo wind tea house."