Harkness Memorial State Park

State Park · Waterford, Connecticut

Eolia, the summer house Edward and Mary Harkness kept on the Waterford shore, given to the state in 1950 and now the rarest kind of Gilded Age estate - one the public actually walks around for nothing. The forty-two room Italianate mansion sits on a low rise with lawn running straight down to Long Island Sound, and the gardens between the two were laid out substantially by Beatrix Farrand: a walled West Garden, an East Garden, a rock garden and long perennial borders, restored over decades and planted properly again. The Harknesses were Standard Oil money spent almost entirely on giving away, which is why their name is on buildings at Yale, Harvard and Columbia. What makes the park work is the combination - formal gardens, a big empty lawn, a stretch of shoreline with a beach you can walk, and a mansion open on a limited basis behind it all. The gardens are the reason to come and the lawn is the reason people stay all day, and in the off season, when the parking is free, you will have the sea to yourself.

275 Great Neck Road, Waterford, Waterford, Connecticut, 06385, United States

The GROUNDS AND GARDENS are open daily year round from around eight in the morning to sunset, and are free to enter on foot. The MANSION opens on a much shorter seasonal schedule, typically late spring to early autumn on limited days, sometimes by guided tour and sometimes self-guided. Parking is charged in season, with a higher rate for out-of-state vehicles. Summer brings an outdoor concert series on announced dates.

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