Just to touch on the significant components of Longwood: there are 20 indoor gardens, 20 outdoor ones, and three with fountains. The Main Fountain Garden, five acres in size in front of the conservatories, is the centerpiece— its loggias, arcades, basins, and plantings evoke the grandeur of Versailles’s landscaping. (du Pont himself designed the hydraulic wonder with R.P Brewer in 1931.)

The reopening of this largest fountain after a 2½-year reconstruction is tied to a 40-year master plan that Redman initiated in 2009, with an invited competition won by West 8. The firm’s plan, completed in 2011, doesn’t, according to principal Claire Agre, “just deal with horticulture and upgrading infrastructure and facilities, but addresses the guest experience and strategies for arrival, as well as how the entire acreage can be opened up for the public.”

For the renovation of the Main Fountain Garden, BBB, responsible for the restoration of Grand Central Terminal and the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory at the New York Botanical Garden, led the team. For starters, the fountains needed major work, which, with improved technology, would cost $90 million, paid privately through the Longwood Foundation and its younger offshoot, Longwood Gardens, Inc.

Spearheaded by partners Jack Beyer and Richard Southwick, BBB installed new precast concrete tunnels and piping, and replaced crumbling limestone and marble. Since four new underground pump houses would replace the original single one, BBB, with Pentagram, converted the original Pump Room into a handsome exhibition space where visitors can examine the early 20th-century engineering equipment, along with related memorabilia. The small gallery now opens onto a new Pumphouse Plaza. In this phase, BBB and West 8 also built a small grotto with fountains behind the center loggia, put in pathways and ramps for accessibility, and oversaw the replanting of the Japanese boxwood, linden and European hornbeam trees, and other such species.

With regard to the next phase, Redman explains that Longwood is exploring various options to enhance guest arrival, which will include the contributions of Weiss/Manfredi, architects for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Visitor Center (2012), and the continued involvement of West 8 as “the keepers of the physical manifestation of our bold vision for Longwood Gardens.” The multifaceted collaboration, so critical to preserving the legacy of the old gardens, seems to be a very promising direction for their future.