Agenda 02-03-2026; 8-i - National Register Recommendation for Moorefields

Browse Search

51 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service/National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB Control No.1024-0018 Moorefields (Additional Documentation) Orange County, N.C. Name of Property County and State sweeping view of the north park"—a picturesque, woodlands ramble that Draper-Savage created as a counterpoint to his formal, axial gardens—unencumbered and its flower beds neatly arranged with "pink floribunda roses, tiny English box, and clipped cedars."157 The X-shaped patterns visible in the 1963 newspaper clipping are not visible in this photograph, taken two years later. Furthermore, by 1968 the North Parterre Garden had been drastically reimagined again: by then, it was enclosed by tall privet hedges and was minimalist in design, mostly a greensward marked by a central statue of a Japanese pagoda (see Figure 12). This minimal form was still visible in a 1972 aerial photograph, which depicted a long, rectangular landscape feature bounded by shrubbery. Presumably, as Draper-Savage aged, he could no longer maintain the gardens as they had appeared at their heights in the early 1960s, and he reverted them to basic layouts and planting plans. Today, the North Parterre Garden appears much as it had at the end of Draper-Savage's tenure. Three pebble walkways north of the house terminate at a small, rectangular rubble terrace which steps down into the garden. At the center of the terrace is a patch of grass with a wooden bench(its back designed in a Chinese lattice pattern similar to that found in the house's stairwell) oriented north. Flanking the terrace are small, rectangular hedge greenswards; shaped hedges and flower beds also frame the terrace. To the north is the formal garden's primary feature, a flat greensward edged by shaped privet hedges. The hedges have openings in the center points of all four sides. Remnants of a longitudinal walk are visible on the grassy plane. At the center is a circular planting bed outlined in rubble stones. The planting bed includes small topiary and a birdbath. The last of Draper-Savage's garden spaces was the Cedar of Lebanon Allee, created northwest of the house and adjacent to and west of the North Parterre Garden between 1964 and 1972.158 Moorefields lore is that Draper Savage laid out a string grid and allowed the birds who alighted there to volunteer trees for him from their droppings, from which he culled a grid; but this fanciful anecdote is belied by the regularity of the double all6e (i.e., four rows) and the consistency of tree species. While some of the cedars have been felled or culled over the succeeding years, there are approximately 12 cedars in each row, spaced approximately 6 feet apart on the vertical (north- south) axis and approximately 10-12 feet apart on the horizontal (east-west) axis. The all6e runs in a straight line to the natural copse beyond the North Parterre Garden.159 The all6e, therefore, was a formal feature tying Draper-Savage's formally designed hedge-garden spaces with more naturalistic ones. At the same time, Draper-Savage planted single and double rows of privet hedges, which he manicured to appear as boxwood. These rows further define the north yard, which by the end of his lifetime held the barn-cum-studio, the all6e, the North Parterre Garden, and lawn. In the 1970s, Draper-Savage transformed the southwest quadrant in the West Parterre Garden into a small burial ground [31OR816]. This quarter of the garden contains his own gravesite (circa 15 February 1978), the burial of his nephew, James Henry Durham (20 November 1914 —27 March 1975), and the grave markers of five of his cats. Although Draper-Savage's uses of the gardens may have changed over time—from showy flower gardens open to the public to private gravesites—and although his various planting plans changed several times in Draper-Savage's own lifetime and since,the bones of this parterre gardens remain. The pea-pebble walks,tree all6e, and the privet hedges that defined the garden rooms remain to the west and north of the house Section 8 page 49