Following the trend of once-private paradises now open to the public, Tucker Marder started Folly Tree Arboretum when his father, Charlie Marder, salvaged some of 600 specimen trees he’d helped plant at The Creeks, the legendary estate of late artist Alfonso Osario. Located in Springs, a neighborhood once home to Jackson Pollock, the passion project has blossomed into a cultural archive of trees. Every summer, the younger Marder hosts 2,000 visitors on private tours, pointing out Osage oranges, gargantuan neon cannonballs that roll down a hill leading what Tucker calls, “a subversive existence.” The arboretum’s calendar is funkily robust with an artist-in-residence series and ‘Sniffing Dinners’ wherein guests climb ladders to bask in the scent of a bigleaf magnolia that blooms, very exclusively, for only three days each summer.
The Ladies’ Village Improvement Society
Formerly the headquarters of British soldiers during the Revolutionary War, the Ladies’ Village Improvement Society’s (LVIS) collection of vintage shops houses a new guard of conservationists. Since 1895, LVIS’ 300-plus members have protected the verdant beauty of East Hampton Village, raising funds to tend to 3,500 trees. “When a tree comes down, we hear about it,” notes Olivia Brooks, Chairwoman of the LVIS Tree Committee. Meandering the bucolic streets that branch out from LVIS is to witness the group’s creative fundraising efforts—more than 800 plaques have been memorialized for “artists, writers, grandmothers, and even a dog named ‘Cleopatra,’” says Brooks. In lieu of adopting a tree, support LVIS mission by perusing vintage clothing, furniture, books, and art or bask in the beauty of the property’s sunken stone-walled garden, surrounded by rings of daylilies.
Nature’s gifts are abundant on the East End, whether you get your kicks shopping for sumptuous specimen trees at Marders and Whitmores or sipping syrah at Channing Daughter’s Winery, nestled within 100-plus acres of conserved land. Yet, as Marder reminds us—gravitas belying the clowning atmosphere of our earlier interlude—“the best thing for big old trees is just to be left alone.”