Bedminster -- Spook Farm

In the possession of the Hyde family from 1929 to 2006, this south-facing, two-tiered garden incorporated a design by Umberto Innocenti and Ferruccio Vitale from the early 1930s, when Innocenti worked for the firm Vitale & Geiffert. The garden featured boxwood hedges, formal flower beds, and a small pond with a central fountain sculpture of a boy and dolphin, made by an Italian stonemason. Fieldstone walls with gargoyles divided the upper and lower gardens, while low fieldstone walls encircled the lower garden, overlooking fields and woods beyond. Between 1954 and 1992 the farm was the site of an art gallery operated by former owner and sculptor Condict F. Hyde.

Persons and firms associated with the garden include: Umberto Innocenti (landscape architect, ca. 1930); Ferruccio Vitale (landscape architect, ca. 1930); Vitale & Geiffert (landscape architects, ca. 1930); Mrs. Leslie Hyde (former owner, 1929-?); and Hugh M. and Condict F. Hyde (former owners, before 2006).