Tregaron’s Landscape Chair, Tamara Belt, was featured in a Washington Post article providing tips on how to create a beautiful, enjoyable garden for all seasons. Read it here.

We’re so excited that Cleveland Park Connection decided to highlight Tregaron Conservancy in their January 2022 issue.

The Tregaron Conservancy is the non-profit property owner and steward of the historic landscape of the Tregaron estate. The Conservancy works in tandem with the Washington International School, which owns and stewards its portion of the 20-acre estate, in caring for the landscape. The District’s regulatory authorities (the Advisory Neighborhood Commission, Historic Preservation Review Board and Board of Zoning Adjustment) have approved the School’s concept plans for a new academic and multi-purpose building, as well as related landscaping plans.

When the project was first proposed, the Conservancy conducted a thorough, independent review of the concept plans. We analyzed the proposal in light of potential preservation and environmental impacts on the Conservancy. We also considered all aspects of the proposed landscape plans as they relate to the Conservancy. In addition, the Conservancy reviewed the plans with specific attention to the proposed usage of an easement area on the south side of the school campus, where previous allowances were made for a basketball court and soccer field. The plans contemplate an amended easement agreement with the Conservancy to build classroom space and a half-court (on top of below-grade construction) in the existing basketball court space.

After careful consideration of all of these elements in light of our responsibility to steward the Conservancy in perpetuity, as well as the continuing importance of our co-stewardship arrangement with WIS, the Conservancy has entered into a new agreement with WIS to ensure that any negative impacts from the proposed project are offset by substantial preservation and environmental benefits to the Conservancy, including financial support for the Conservancy’s annual maintenance costs and landscape capital projects over the next 20 years. These offsetting benefits are as follows:

1. Important construction-related commitments: The Conservancy will engage an engineer to review the hydrological impact of the project with financial support from WIS, and the parties will establish remediation and mitigation mechanisms to address any harms to the Conservancy during construction.
2. Increase of WIS’s existing financial support of the Conservancy’s landscape maintenance: Increases and extends the duration of WIS’s annual payments to support the Conservancy’s landscape maintenance work.
3. New funding for Conservancy landscape capital improvement projects: Establishes new payments by WIS to support the Conservancy’s landscape rehabilitation projects on a long-term basis, so that the Conservancy may accomplish the extensive capital improvement work called for in its 2005-2007 Cultural Landscape Report and 2017 Preservation and Sustainability Report. For example, this support will enable the Conservancy to restore damaged stone bridges, walls and stairways; undertake important drainage work; remove crumbling concrete walls; stabilize sloped areas; improve trails; update signage; and plant extensive new wild gardens inspired by Ellen Biddle Shipman’s original designs.  All of this work will protect the landscape against degradation and enable the community to continue to enjoy Tregaron well into the future.
4. Compensation for easement to use existing basketball court area for classroom and half-court space: WIS will compensate the Conservancy for building on the land in the basketball court area and the resulting incursion into the Conservancy’s overall viewshed.  Background: In 2006, the Mayor’s Agent for Historic Preservation ordered that a portion of the land that lies between the School and Conservancy properties be designated as open space to be treated as Conservancy land. Shortly thereafter, an agreement was reached and approved by HPRB to allow the school to locate its basketball court on a portion of that land, as that issue had been deferred by all involved and no other site could be identified. In 2014, at the School’s request, the Conservancy agreed to grant the School another easement to install underground geothermal wells beneath the South Lawn on the open space area.  The new construction requires an amendment to this existing easement and is confined to the already-disturbed basketball court area. The new above-ground construction will be masked by berms and landscaping.
5. Significant, historically-appropriate landscape improvements: (a) WIS will complete landscaping of the West Grove (surrounding new construction in the easement area that will recapture Shipman’s historic design and over time will screen the new building), and (b) WIS will complete the work to improve the Macomb side of the driveway (with restored gutters and an improved walkway) and install new historically appropriate Macomb entryway landscaping.
6. Moratorium on additional new construction for 10 years: An agreement by WIS to refrain from more building projects for a 10-year period (running from HPRB approval in December 2020), with reasonable exceptions for such campus maintenance issues as safety, environmental and repair/replacement concerns, and with conditions that recognize the burden that consideration of new projects imposes on the Conservancy and its limited resources.

The Conservancy believes that the new agreement will satisfy its concerns regarding landscaping, hydrological and viewshed impacts, and the easement area. It also reflects the permanent partnership between the Conservancy and WIS as structured by our founders and extends WIS’s critical financial support for the Conservancy. The Conservancy would struggle to replace the School’s significant backing, even with the valued contributions we receive each year from supporters and volunteers. The Conservancy therefore has an interest both in reaching an agreement with our co-steward on landscape issues and in securing stable funding that is essential to the ongoing preservation, maintenance and enhancement of the landscape, as well as the long-term sustainability of the Conservancy. The Conservancy looks forward to continuing to work with WIS productively in the years to come as co-stewards of the Tregaron landmark.

We’re thrilled to be featured in a recent Washington Post article among a list of six “stunning spots” for family photos in DC!

We would love to be the backdrop for your family’s photo session, but please note that professional photography at Tregaron Conservancy requires a permit, which can be procured by emailing info@tregaronconservancy.org.

The Washington Post’s Going Out Guide recommended our first Tregaron Unplugged event, in partnership with Washington Performing Arts/Mars Arts DC, as one of its “best things to do in the D.C. area the week of Oct. 7-13.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/10/07/best-things-do-dc-area-week-oct-7-13/