Henriette Suhr, Owner and Co-Creator of Rocky Hills

Henriette Granville Suhr, a self-taught gardener whose home Rocky Hills became one of the most glorious gardens north of New York City, died suddenly March 17.

“Henriette Granville Suhr set the Town’s standard for energetic community engagement with more than forty years of gracious persistence and civic leadership in the pursuit of responsible environmental practices,” said New Castle Town Supervisor Rob Greenstein in the weekly newsletter. “We and the generations that follow will be greener for her efforts. May she rest in peace.”

The Garden Conservancy holds a conservation easement on the 13-acre property, which at one point Mrs. Suhr had hoped to donate to Westchester County. Overseeing the garden in recent years has been a collaborative effort of the conservancy, the Rocky Hills Advisory Board and the Friends of Rocky Hills.

Public programs last year included lectures at the Chappaqua Public Library and Garden Conservancy Open Days at the garden.

According to the Rocky Hills website, she and her husband William bought the property in 1956 as a weekend and vacation retreat.

Born in Vienna, she was a designer—and “one of the innovators of Bloomingdales department store’s furniture showrooms.”

He was an art conservator.

Amateur gardeners, they became obsessed with the property, and over 50 years transformed “wild woodland and meadow into one of the country’s most distinctive gardens.” They traveled often, but set aside spring as the season they would always be there, and planted accordingly.

They moved there permanently in 1977. He died in 1984.

MORE:

• Read her obituary in The Journal News.
• Visit the Rocky Hills website.
• Watch a set of video conversations with her from a 2011 Garden Conservancy event, “A Life’s Work: Half a Century in the Garden.”

• Part 1: Introductions
• Part 2: Henriette Granville Suhr’s early years
• Part 3: New York, interior design
• Part 4: The beginnings of Rocky Hills
• Part 5: Rocky Hills today, Part 1
• Part 6: Rocky Hills today, Part 2