By JOYCE CORRIGAN
If not for the sight of red and gold leaves whirling ecstatically in a circle like witches on Halloween night, melancholy usually sets in this time of year. It’s hard to bid goodbye to one of the most spectacular falls in Westchester memory. But even as foliage fades to brown, a late autumn visit to Lasdon Park, Arboretum and Veterans Memorial never fails to stir the soul. Bare trees reveal their beautiful bone structure, after all.
A park for all seasons, with 234 acres of woodlands, grass meadows, formal gardens and an infinite number of interactive events for visitors of every age, Lasdon Park was the former 1930s estate of William and Mildred Lasdon, funded by his pharmaceutical fortune. It was purchased in 1986 by Westchester County and reimagined as an open to the public paradise to honor the shifting landscape and our connection to it.
With Halloween 2024 now history, the park is gearing up for its crowd-pleasing Holiday on the Hill Train Show.
But don’t wait: a visit in late autumn is especially mystical. The narrator of Virginia Woolf’s “To The Lighthouse” saw in fall a metaphor for memory and loss and transformation: “All the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be are full of trees and changing leaves.” How fitting that, as Veterans Day looms, Lasdon Park becomes the site of annual pilgrimages for Westchester veterans, families and friends of vets and all those who served. This past Friday at Lasdon Parks’ popular Trail of Honor, there was the unveiling of a new monument to the 25 soldiers who died Nov. 1, 1968, in an explosion on board the USS Westchester, a vessel that transported troops from Japan to Vietnam.
On Sunday, Nov. 10, Veterans Day eve, visitors will walk the Trail of Honor, a tranquil, 1/3- mile wooded path that encompasses a series of memorial sculptures representing each major war from the American Revolution to Desert Storm. Led by Dan Griffin of the Westchester County Veterans Affairs Office, and president of the Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 49, this popular tradition started with Lasdon’s 1987 dedication of a Vietnam Memorial which honored all veterans of Westchester County. Gen. William Westmoreland, commander of the U.S. forces during Vietnam, was in attendance.
“Lasdon’s forest setting is a living thing, so the perfect venue for celebrating heroes who gave their lives and should never be forgotten,” Griffin said. All the bronze busts sit atop cairns covered with stones from the 44 towns of Westchester. Recently added is a black granite monument inscribed with the names of eight female military nurses — Westchester natives — killed in Vietnam. “The Trail has really flourished in its four decades,” Griffin said. “When members of our unit first came to Lasdon, before the county took over, we joked it was so overgrown, it reminded us of the jungles of Vietnam; but ever since, the county maintains it beautifully, the paths are cleared and the plantings always well kept.”
Also on Nov. 10, 5- to 7-year-olds can attend “Atten-hut!!! Veterans Day for Children” where they decorate a military-style dog tag to wear during a special hands-on tour of Lasdon’s Veterans Museum, originally the caretaker’s house. Renovated in 2013, the museum features revolving exhibits and displays of artifacts donated by vets from a variety of military conflicts. “Many who come — and I don’t mean just the children — are learning about our nation’s history for the first time,” Griffin said.
In truth, a lot of people don’t know enough about Lasdon itself, including the many in the Bedford area who regularly trek to the Bronx to the New York Botanical Garden.
“This really is our Botanical Garden, and so much easier to get to!” says Laura Blau, president of the board of Friends of Lasdon Park and Arboretum, the nonprofit tasked with developing and enriching Lasdon. “Our goal is to make the park what it should be; to surpass its potential.”
Arguably not a big ask for Blau, a Bedford resident for 50 years and civic leader, who through the years has headed up Art Show: Bedford and the Native Plant Center, and continues to serve on the advisory council at Caramoor.
“First up is doubling the size of the visitors center,” she said. “We’ve got the incredibly talented Chappaqua architect Jeff Taylor already hard at work.”
Taylor will convert and expand the original pool house and add classrooms, bathrooms and indoor space. Eventually there will be a café. “The Park will always honor the Lasdon legacy,” Blau said. “They were world travelers with tremendous taste and elegance who imported many tree specimens they’d been impressed with abroad. That was the start of the arboretum.”
“We have very big plans for Lasdon,” confirms Jessica Schuler, Lasdon’s park director since 2020, herself a transplant from the NYBG, where she served as director of the Thain Family Forest developing both education and research programs. Schuler holds a Bachelor of Science in plant science from Cornell.
“We’re adding lots more programs designed for school and scout groups,” she said. “The younger generation, more aware of climate change, want to know how they can do their part, learning which species need to be protected and what their families might be planting at their own homes.”
Collaborations that continue to reinforce Lasdon Park’s horticulture cred abound. Recently it hosted a pollinator garden tour with Healthy Yards Westchester and donated trees to Bedford 2030’s annual Arbor Day celebrations.
“We’re also very excited to be working with specialists from the American Chestnut Foundation,” Schuler said. “The goal is restoration and developing a disease-resistant form of this magnificent native specimen that was devastated by the chestnut blight that started at the turn of the last century.”
In 1992, 3 acres of rare American chestnut trees were discovered in Lasdon’s arboretum. Once the dominant tree species of our eastern forests, providing essential nutrition for deer, bears, squirrels, and turkeys — the chestnut’s infection and stunting has been considered an American tragedy. The conservation work of the ACF is yielding promising results.
Beyond the chestnuts, Schuler calls out Lasdon’s other arboreal “showstoppers” including their katsura trees which, in Japanese folklore, were depicted as the perch upon which gods first descended from the heavens. There’s also a magnificent trio of sargent hemlocks, an American dwarf native with a giant dome of foliage, that can grow 20 feet high and 40 feet across; it was once described as a “vernal fountain of perpetual joy.”
Other must-sees include the magnificent Glass House Conservatory that debuted in 2017 with the exhibition “The Rainforest: Tropical Treasures,” and the original main residence, a graceful 1930s colonial revival that’s open for special tours. On any given weekend at Lasdon there can be yoga in the garden, trails without limits hiking, outdoor painting workshops, pruning demos, guided tours of the gardens or arboretum, and exhibitions in the greenhouse or veterans museum. In the coming weeks, expect wreath and gingerbread decorating.
“A major part of our mission is to educate and provide deeper connections between people and the park,” Schuler said. She admits that she, too, has been learning on the job. “I confess that when I first got here the children’s dinosaur garden was my least favorite feature,” she says. “But as the pandemic progressed, we saw floods of young families who were here only for that, and they were obviously having a great time. I got on board.”
Lasdon has been expanding programs in this sector and is installing new paved paths. Next spring will see a massive “Dinos in the Garden” show featuring life-size animatronic dinosaurs, interactive displays and thousands of new plants. Paleontologists now believe that up to 70 percent of dinosaurs were herbivores. Another teaching moment in the garden.
For more information, visit lasdonpark.org. Lasdon Park, Arboretum and Veterans Memorial is located at 2610 Route 35, Katonah.
