One Of The World's Most Beautiful Gardens For A Fall Stroll Is In New York, Per Samantha Brown

Hudson Valley, New York is full of beautiful small towns like Millbrook, whose beauty is aided by the fact that it's home to Innisfree Garden. Noted Travel Channel host Samantha Brown called Innisfree Garden "one of the most beautiful gardens in the world" on her website, Samantha Brown's Places to Love, and we agree with her. This picturesque spot is especially stunning in fall thanks to its many trees. 

A big part of what makes Innisfree Garden so special for Brown is its history and design. Designing what is now an 185-acre public park first started as plans for a private estate in the 1920s by husband and wife team Walter and Marion Beck, who were later joined by landscape architect Lester Collins. "Beck was particularly inspired by the work of 8th-century Chinese poet, painter, and garden maker, Wang Wei," Brown noted on her website, "while Collins, during the three decades he'd worked on Innisfree, was inspired by his multiple experiences and studies of Japanese landscapes."

Collins once described the garden as "something of the dream world," per Innisfree Garden. And he was kind of a big deal; he worked on a number of other impressive projects, including the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., and he was instrumental in making Innisfree Garden available to the public in 1960. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2019 because of its design – clearly, Brown isn't alone in loving Innisfree Garden.

Innisfree Garden was built amongst the rolling hills around the 40-acre Tyrrel Lake, which is a glacial lake dating back some 13,000 years. Many of the trees throughout Innisfree Garden change color as the weather grows colder and the days grow shorter, and at the lakeshore, you can get some stunning photos of the changing colors of the leaves reflected in the water. Bonus, the trees aren't the only show stoppers here: the little bluestem meadow also turns a dreamy orangey-red color.

The park is a series of cultivated spaces, which Walter Beck called "cup gardens" (via Innisfree Garden). Each one is designed to bring your attention to a certain feature or perspective while also working together as a whole. It's a unique combination of bogs, rock terraces, lawns, meadows, woodlands, and more. Amidst the grounds, you can find waterfalls, sculptures, and carvings, and in many of them, you can clearly see the influence from Lester Collins's work in Japan and Walter Beck's love of Chinese culture.

As Samantha Brown noted, the park gets its name from the Willam Butler Yeats poem "The Lake Isle of Innisfree." You can see why that was their inspiration; the poem is all about looking for calm in the natural world, and that's what you get here.

For Samantha Brown, Innisfree Garden is best explored with an open mind and no agenda. "Really take your time leisurely zigzagging through the gardens and imagine what kind of ancient paintings and views inspired the designs seen today," she said on "Samantha Brown's Places to Love."

It doesn't take too long to wander through the park, though that might depend on how long you linger and take in the views. The longest trail, around the lake, is under 1.5 miles. It really is a place that's all about connecting with nature at your own pace; however, if you do want to get some guidance and context as to what you're looking at, you can book a spot on their monthly Curator Tour for $35. Otherwise, the general admission cost is $5 for seniors and kids and $10 for adults. 

So if you're looking to slow down and unplug on your vacation, spend some time at Innisfree Garden to let the natural world inspire and relax you. And if you're looking for more outdoor fun in Hudson Valley in fall, it has some of the best places on the East Coast for apple picking.