This series of photographs by Steve Gross and Susan Daley centers on the gardens and landscape of America’s plantations and gilded age estates. The locations range from the South East to the Hudson Valley and New England including Newport, Rhode Island, and The Berkshires. The images are printed in a blue monotone to release them from the contemporary constraints of seeing in the present tense, as full-color photography would do. These sites express a strong sense of place and historic beauty and seem to exist as a parallel universe, an oasis out of time, so different from the modern world outside their gates and walls.  Although the gardens exist today with the purpose of public inclusion rather than being the private domain of the privileged, there is still a continuity with the past and much to be experienced in these visions of lost paradises.

Steve Gross & Susan Daley are photographers whose work explores America’s historic architecture and landscape design. They are the authors of 12 books and their fine art photography has been exhibited at the O.K. Harris Gallery in NYC as well as being held in numerous museums and private collections.