Planting Fields Arboretum Greenhouses (Camellia Greenhouse and Main Greenhouse)

William Robertson Coe, an insurance and railroad executive, bought a 353-acre estate at Oyster Bay in 1913. Married to Mary "Mai" Huttleston Rogers, daughter of the Standard Oil principal Henry H. Rogers, he commissioned the landscaping from Guy Lowell and A. Robeson Sargent. The house, Coe Hall, was built between 1918 and 1921.

The Main Greenhouse was built in stages from 1914 to 1929 by Lowell & Sargent and then the Olmsted Brothers; a Hibiscus House was added in 1929 for the Coes' collection. The Camellia Greenhouse, designed in 1917 by Lowell & Sargent and extended by the Olmsted Brothers to 1922, was conceived for an unusually fine collection from Guernsey offered in 1916 through the nurseryman Waterer. It comprised 114 full-grown plants, including selected Camellia japonica and six Camellia reticulata never before grown in the United States.

In 1949 Coe deeded the 353-acre estate to New York State during his lifetime. Planting Fields has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1979. The Camellia Greenhouse was rebuilt in 1982-84, with the camellias planted directly in the ground.

Two glasshouse groups stand out. The Main Greenhouse, built over fifteen years from 1914 to 1929, grew by successive additions up to the Hibiscus House of 1929. It is credited to Lowell & Sargent and the Olmsted Brothers.

The Camellia Greenhouse, created in 1917 by Lowell & Sargent and revised and extended by the Olmsted Brothers to 1922, rests on a notable idea: in James F. Dawson's design the camellias are sunk directly in the soil rather than wheeled out in tubs each season. The 1982-84 reconstruction kept this principle by planting the camellias in the ground.

The sources consulted give neither dimensions nor precise materials for these greenhouses.

The Camellia Greenhouse now holds more than 300 plants, against 114 at the outset. The collection goes back to a Guernsey group offered in 1916, with selected Camellia japonica and six Camellia reticulata.

The Main Greenhouse offers large collections of orchids, cacti and succulents, houseplants, ferns and begonias, together with seasonal displays that include chrysanthemums, poinsettias, hydrangeas and coleus. The Hibiscus House, added in 1929, recalls the Coes' hibiscus collection.

Both glasshouses, the Main Greenhouse and the Camellia Greenhouse, are part of the 409-acre Planting Fields estate at Oyster Bay, which has more than twenty gardens and five miles of woodland trails. Coe Hall, a 65-room Tudor Revival mansion, can also be toured.

The sources consulted do not state when the camellias flower or give the calendar of seasonal displays, which the estate publishes on its website. A visit combines with the outdoor gardens and with the mansion, which is toured with a guide.