We found the most beautiful area in Nassau, The Versailles. This beautiful area has terraced gardens overlooking Nassau Harbor, with box hedges, fish ponds & a medieval cloister. Beautifully manicured gardens set next to a 12th century Augustine monastery.
This quarter-mile stretch of impeccably manicured greenswards houses a personally curated collection of stone and bronze statues, ascending in a climax of fine white marble cloisters overlooking Nassau Harbor. A walk through this art evokes images of the legendary experiences for which the Resort is known.
Heir to A. & P. Tea Company, George Huntington Hartford II bought the property around 1960; then named Shangri La. Purchased from Swedish millionaire Wenner-Gren, Hartford envisioned a luxury estate for Hollywood and business elite. He imported European fountains and statues and petitioned the renaming of Hog Island to Paradise Island. Of the 13 statues, we highlight three along the walk.
“The Reclining Venus” lays peacefully sheltered from the elements and enjoys an appropriately peaceful visage in the heart of the spa. Sculpted in 1829 by one of the 18th century’s most lauded artists, Lorenzo Bartollini from Florence, Italy, Venus is impeccably etched out of Italian marble on a bed of concrete; Bartollini’s signature visible on the anterior of the prized piece. Emulating the 16th century Italian painting by Titian, this is the most revered pieces of Hartford’s collection.
Hartford’s most iconic purchase happened in 1961 when he acquired the disassembled parts of the 12th century cloisters that seemingly sentinel the Gardens. Originally purchased from Parisian art dealers in 1924 by media mogul William Randolph Hearst, the intention was to use the columns as ornaments in his namesake castle in Northern California. Upon arrival in Brooklyn, New York in 1925, the unloaded marble pieces were mixed at customs with those of Spanish Cistercian monastery Santa Maria Real. As Heart’s fortune declined, his elaborate collections waned and the confused cloister collection sat in crates for 25 years. Between 1951 and 1961 the cloister remains were owned by three businessmen who reconstructed the Pyrenean church, but chose not to erect the cloisters. Hartford acquired them thereafter, and hired J.J. Castremanne, architect, to assemble the pieces.
The cloisters set in our Garden are a combination of more than one origin. According to a study conducted by a French doctorate student, these cloisters, “comprise an open-air, square space composed by inner and outer uncovered arcades, creating a passageway between them. The great arches spring from double capitals poised over paired columns. This large ensemble would be composed of three original hundred twenty carved pieces in white marble (capitals, columns and bases). The columns of the ‘inner cloister’ are supported by tri-lobed arches, possibly original, as well as the pillars at each corner.”
At the center sits a marble statue in contemplation. Titled, “Silence”, the statue was placed there by artist William Reid Dick, also cast in statue within the Garden. This marble statue was created in 1928.
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