Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum: Cultural Landscape Report, Volume II: Treatment, New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, National Park Service

Beagan, Christopher; Foulds, H Eliot

The Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum, located on County Street in New Bedford, Massachusetts, chronicles 147 years of economic and social life in New Bedford through its architecture, decorative arts, and landscape, along with the stories of the three principal families who inhabited the home from 1834 through the late 1970s. The property comprises an entire city block, roughly one acre in extent, with the house situated in the northwest quarter of the lot,bordered by gardens and lawns to the south, and a greenhouse complex to the east. The Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum landscape retains much of its historic residential character, defined by the buildings, lush gardens, and loose aggregate garden paths that typify the property. While largely intact, the landscape has changed since the occupancies of the Rotch, Jones, and Duff families due to natural growth, decline, and replacement of vegetation, accommodation for public use, and the perennial constraints of maintenance. With the transition from private to public use, the grounds have lost some of the domestic qualities that once contributed to their historic character. The purpose of this report is to outline a program of tasks that will preserve what survives and recapture the gardens’ former character to the greatest extent possible. Treatment is a term used to describe planned changes to the physical appearance of a cultural resource, usually with the goal of enhancing historic character in the context of contemporary use. The purpose of a landscape treatment plan is to present guidelines and specific tasks for preserving and enhancing the landscape’s characteristics and features in the context of significance, existing conditions, and use. The overall goal of this treatment report is to provide a basis for the sound stewardship of the grounds of the Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum. The methods used in this report are based on A Guide to Cultural Landscape Reports: Content, Process, and Techniques. This report constitutes the second volume of the cultural landscape report for the Rotch-Jones-Duff House &Garden Museum, building on the site history, existing conditions, historical analysis, and site and geophysical surveys completed in 2010. The treatment framework is the product of a cooperative and interactive effort led by the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation in early February 2011, with the support of New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, as well as committee members from the Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum, the Garden Club of Buzzards Bay, the City of New Bedford, and the Waterfront Area Historic League (WHALE). The treatment workshop was followed by two draft review workshops held at the Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum with the core project team in late June and mid-December 2011. This report is organized into three chapters. The first chapter establishes a philosophical and planning framework for recommending appropriate treatment that is based on the museum’s mission and the findings of Cultural Landscape Report and Geophysical Survey, Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum. This framework articulates a landscape treatment philosophy that establishes a primary treatment approach for the landscape and a treatment date as a benchmark for assessing historic character. Based on this treatment framework, the second chapter provides an overview of the landscape organized into five landscape treatment areas and defines specific tasks to enhance the historic character of the landscape. The report concludes with a summary table of treatment tasks that identifies priorities and suggests an implementation sequence.

Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum: Cultural Landscape Report, Volume II: Treatment, New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, National Park Service

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