Notes

(1) Author Unknown, Unpublished Biographical Manuscript, most probably written and amended at various times during the 1950’s, Appendix 3, pages 1 & 2; and Author Unknown, Unpublished Typescript, “Pertinent Facts Concerning Russel Wright”, pages 4 & 5, undated. Both provided by Russel Wright’s daughter, Ann Wright. Among others, McCall’s and Mademoiselle magazines, and the General Electric Corporation conducted studies confirming the designer’s high level of name recognition and product desirability. As a brand, only large manufacturers such as Lenox were comparable to Russel Wright in name recognition.

(2) Tape recorded memoirs, dictation, and interviews conducted by Marley Beers (hereinafter collectively, “Tapes”), all most likely made in the mid-1970’s, provided by Russel Wright’s daughter, Ann Wright.

(3) Ibid

(4) See my essay, “Marketing Easier Living: The Commodification of Russel Wright”, in”Russel Wright: Creating American Lifestyle”, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 2001, page 138.

(5) Tapes

(6) Ibid

(7) Ibid. This was the original Shun Lee Palace on 2nd Avenue in Manhattan.

(8) Notable examples include the “Outdoor Living Room”, designed for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which served as the model for the hearth and fireplace at Dragon Rock in 1962; and the “Relish Rosette”, executed in spun aluminum in several sizes and conformations, in pottery for the American Modern line, and analogously, if not precisely, in wood for the Oceana line “Snail Relish.” The rosette is perhaps the quintessential work by the designer, serving as a metaphor for the concentric circles of domesticity that expand, like ripples in a pond, from the table, to the house, to the landscape.

(9) Op Cit, Tapes

(10) Ibid. Wright is here using “Dragon Rock” to refer to the entirety of his house and property, in the sense of an approach to living in and with nature. Eventually, “Manitoga” became the appellation for the landscape, as well as the name of the foundation that owns and operates the house and property. Today, Dragon Rock generally refers to the house, although it is not unusual to encounter some confusion between the two names.

(11) Ibid

(12) Ibid

(13) “Easier Living” is the catchphrase adopted by Mary and Russel Wright to refer to their ideas for housekeeping and entertaining in the modern world of 1950. Their book of the same title (Simon & Shuster, New York, 1950) is a fascinating document of its time.

(14) Wright’s maternal ancestors included Robert Morris and William Whipple, signers of the Declaration of Independence

(15) For example, the Wright family had been involved in the Underground Railroad.

(16) Carol Franklin, Draft of Master Plan for Manitoga, Andropogon Associates, 1982, page 15

(17) Op Cit, Tapes

(18) Op Cit, Tapes. From his earliest forays into the city, Wright held a strong belief in the friendliness and welcoming qualities of New York.

(19) Ibid

(20) Franklin, Draft of Master Plan for Manitoga, page 13. The naturally occurring American Chestnut had long ago disappeared, although efforts are under way to reintroduce a disease-resistant variety. The hemlocks in Wright’s area are presently infested with wooly adelgid, an aphid-like insect, and are seriously threatened.

(21) Op Cit, Tapes

(22) Wright would not begin construction of his audacious “dream house” until after Mary’s death.

(23) Mark Snow (aka James Rose), “Modern American Gardens – Designed by James Rose”, Reinhold Publishing Corporation, New York, 1967, p. 78

(24) Ibid, p.78

(25) Marc Treib, “Axioms for a Modern Landscape Architecture”, essay in “Modern Landscape Architecture, A Critical Review”, Marc Treib, editor, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1993, p. 51

(26) Op Cit, Tapes

(27) Ibid

(28) While all garden-making involves the manipulation of nature, the Eastern and Western approaches are radically different. Manitoga may be contrasted with its neighbor, Boscobel, among others in the Hudson River Valley, in this regard.

(29) So named by Wright as the title of an essay he wrote in 1970

(30) For the more ambitious, the paths also connect with the longer Osborne Loop, and even the Appalachian Trail.

(31) Mary & Russel Wright, “Guide to Easier Living”, Simon & Shuster, New York, 1950

(32) Russel Wright, “A Garden of Woodland Paths”, 1970, reprinted by Manitoga, undated, page 6

(33) Russel Wright, “Building a Dream House – The Story of Dragon Rock”, typescript, Russel Wright Archives, Department of Special Collections, Byrd Library, Syracuse University, New York, unpaginated

(34) Ibid

(35) Ibid

(36) Op Cit, Tapes

(37) Ibid

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