The Museum’s outdoor sculpture collection of over 40 pieces by 30 sculptors is located throughout its 145 acres of fields, woods, ponds, and formal gardens of the William Cullen Bryant Preserve. With sculpture created over the past 100 years, from 1913 to 2018.
To view and download a Sculpture Map, click here.
To view and download a Children’s Outdoor Adventures Sculpture Guide, click here.
The museum’s living collections are found on its 145 acres, officially known as the William Cullen Bryant Preserve, and include an arboretum, nature trails, a native plant garden, and a formal garden. The land has a long history. It owes its unique and varied topographical features to the glacier that receded from here more than 10,000 years ago, leaving behind hills and ravines, ponds and boulders. The Manhasset Indians were its earliest recorded inhabitants, and the 17th and 18th centuries brought Dutch and English settlers and farmers. In the 19th century, it became William Cullen Bryant’s Upland Farm and then a country estate in the late 1890s, before finally becoming a museum and preserve open to the public in 1969.
The grounds at Clayton must be thought of in terms of a great assembly of art, as valuable and as vulnerable as a great collection of paintings, set in a frame of equal value. Today, the art of the garden and its history is a subject of equal academic weight to art history or the history of architecture.
When Frances and Childs Frick entertained guests here in the 1920s and 30s, a favorite afternoon entertainment was a leisurely stroll down the brick path from the house to the formal garden. This path, lined with specimen trees collected and planted by Childs Frick, is considered part of the garden’s design.
Butterflies, birds, bees, and other pollinators all need native plants for food and shelter. Much of this natural habitat on Long Island has disappeared because of an ever-increasing population and building development. Native plant gardens in homes as well as public areas are one way to alleviate this situation. The newest gardens at NCMA have been planted for this purpose. ReWild Long Island planted a native plant butterfly garden in one of the barren circles around the Manes Art & Education Center on the grounds of the Museum in Fall 2019. In May 2020, volunteers replaced two more barren circles with blooming native plants, with generous funding, guidance, and support from the Northshore Audubon Society. Across the roadway, more volunteers planted two milkweed gardens to provide food and habitat for monarch butterflies, thanks to a grant from Monarch Watch at the University of Kansas. These gardens are easily adapted to a home garden of almost any size and feature spring, summer, and fall flowering plants that attract and feed birds, bees, and many different butterflies. These gardens are now alive with blooms and the munching of caterpillars, the buzzing of bees, the fluttering of butterflies, and, of course, the birds that feed on them.
Audubon’s mission is to conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds and other wildlife. For advice on how to create or to be certified as a bird-friendly habitat, please contact Peggy Maslow at pmaslow@gmail.com
Starting in Spring 2023, the project Restoring Coastal Grassland at the William Cullen Bryant Preserve involved removing non-native invasive plants and fall seeding of 10 acres of native grassland meadow with warm-season native grasses and forbs to improve the environment of the Hempstead Harbor watershed and to reclaim wildlife habitat.
The Museum’s nine marked nature trails, which cover over 6 miles, were cleared in 2006. Most are on bridle paths or driveways in existence during the Frick’s ownership, and some of these bridle paths followed nature trails originally cleared by William Cullen Bryant and often served as inspiration for his poetry.
The Path
The path we planned beneath the October’s sky,
Along the hill-side, through woodland shade,
Is finished; thanks to thee [Bryant’s wife], whose kindly eye
Has watched me, as I plied the busy spade;
Else had I wearied, ere this path of ours
Had pierced the woodland to its inner bowers.Yet, ’twas a pleasant toil to trace and beat,
Among the glowing trees, this winding way,
While the sweet autumn sunshine, doubly sweet,
Flushed with ruddy foliage, round us lay,
As if some gorgeous cloud of morning stood,
In glory, mid the arches of the wood.A path! What beauty does a path bestow
Even on the dreariest wild! Its savage nook
Seem homelike where accustomed footsteps go,
And the grim rock puts on familiar looks,
The tangled swamp, through which a pathway strays,
Becomes a garden with strange flowers and sprays.
-William Cullen Bryant
The trails vary in length and difficulty, as some follow the steep, hilly contours of the ravines – Jerusha Dewey, Ravine, and Mountain Laurel, while others are mostly flat – Clayton Trellis, Hempstead Harbor Overlook, Twin Pond, and Pinetum. Tulip Tree is one of the longest trails, and a combination of forest and meadow, with flat and gradual inclines. Traces of the Frick’s rope tow can still be found on some of the steepest hills where the family enjoyed winter skiing.
Cool and shady in summer, brilliantly colored in fall, stark and striking in winter, and transforming daily in spring as new growth emerges, the trails through offer inspiration and tranquility in all four seasons.
Trail Clearing and Marking
Eagle Scout Project 2020
Lucas Colonna
Troop 116, Valley Stream
