Liberty Hyde Bailey Conservatory (Cornell University)

Cornell's glasshouses go back to the Sage Conservatory, a wood-framed range opened in 1882 with a total footprint of 50 by 152 feet, sold and removed in 1923. Liberty Hyde Bailey, horticulturist and first dean of the College of Agriculture, started forcing houses there in 1889; from 1909 iron-framed greenhouses were added, about seventeen of them by 1917.

The conservatory that bears his name was built in 1931 by the Lord & Burnham Co., then the leading greenhouse supplier in the United States, on a 42 by 92 foot plan, to house the tropical palms Bailey studied for thirty-five years after his retirement. His herbarium specimens form the Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium, of which the conservatory is one of the living collections. According to the Cornell Daily Sun, Bailey did without an entrance portico to save money but paid for the distinctive curved sides. The builder recommended an overhaul every fifteen years: taking out the panes, treating the timber, replacing broken parts and reglazing.

After 79 years the cypress frame was spent: in mid-November 2010 the house was closed to all traffic because of falling glass and structural decay, and the college judged restoration unaffordable, at up to five times the cost of a new greenhouse. A landscape architecture class had proposed a rehabilitation with a portico; the scheme was dropped. Rebuilt on a larger footprint, the conservatory reopened on 9 February 2016 after six years, run by the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station.

The 2016 conservatory covers about 4,000 square feet, some 370 m², at 236 Tower Road on the south side of the Plant Science Building, to which it is linked by a vestibule. It is divided into two sections: the Student House, nearest the building, where potted plants stand on benches, and the Palm House, fronting Tower Road, made up of a single large bed bounded by a walkway. The growing medium of that bed is a custom mix of coconut coir, biochar and clay-based products.

Climate control is computerised, with sensors for light, humidity and temperature. Larger vents provide air circulation without loud motorised fans; hot-water heating has replaced steam; a fog system humidifies and cools the air by evaporation. Mechanical shade and insulating curtains close at dusk to trap heat: according to the facilities manager quoted by the Cornell Chronicle, they cut heat loss by up to 40 per cent, and the whole system uses half the heating energy of older greenhouses. The 1931 house was glazed on a cypress frame.

The conservatory holds more than 500 species from nearly 80 plant families, tropical, subtropical and others. It is the home of Cornell's titan arums: two of the university's corpse flowers live here. In the Palm House grow bird-of-paradise, cycads, cocoa and coffee around a titan arum; the Student House gathers on its benches orchids, cacti, euphorbias, grasses and primitive or unusual plants, used mainly for teaching and some research.

Flowerings make the news on the conservatory's website: Darwin's orchid, Angraecum sesquipedale, bloomed again in December 2022 and Stanhopea tigrina in August 2023. Before the rebuild, the old house also sheltered carnivorous plants and a Welwitschia mirabilis from the Namib desert. The Cornell Agricultural Experiment Station, which manages 146 greenhouses, uses biological pest control here.

Entry is through the north vestibule connected to the Plant Science Building; the door on Tower Road stays locked. Visits are free on working days when the university is open, and the house may close occasionally for maintenance or when the campus closes. Half an hour is enough for the two sections, more when a titan arum is about to flower. In winter the conservatory offers, in the words of Professor Karl Niklas, a calm, green space in the middle of campus. The driveway of the neighbouring Minns Garden is used for dropping off visitors; the nearest public car park is the Peterson Lot at Tower Road and Judd Falls Road. No pets or food; large groups should contact the conservatory beforehand.