Sonnenberg Gardens

Sonnenberg Gardens is a 40-acre estate on the eastern edge of Canandaigua, New York, behind a thick masonry wall. It holds lawns, a deer park, a large stone-and-shingle house built in 1887, and eight distinct gardens: Italian, Rose, Sub-Rosa, Blue and White, Pansy, Old-Fashioned, Rock and Japanese. Frederick Ferris Thompson and Mary Clark Thompson bought the land in 1863. After his death in 1899, Mrs. Thompson had the grounds redesigned around 1900 by landscape architect Ernest Bowditch, and a Japanese designer, K. Wadamori, planned the Japanese Garden. The nomination values the estate for its architecture, landscape design and sculpture, and for the rare scale and preservation of its gardens. A Veterans Administration hospital bought the property in 1931 and kept up the gardens as part of patient rehabilitation. In 1972 the house and gardens passed to a non-profit corporation, and in 1973 they opened permanently to the public.