Originally named Maudesleigh, the estate was created on agricultural fields by landscape architect Martha Brookes Hutcheson, one of the earliest female members of the American Society of Landscape Architects, who designed the grounds around the main house, entry drive, and formal gardens (1904–1906). Lord and Burnham designed various of the greenhouses. At its peak, about 40 staff serviced the estate's three greenhouses, head house, cold frames, espaliered fruit trees, winter plant house, formal vegetable and cutting garden, perennial border, Italian garden, rose garden, and rhododendrons, azaleas, and specimen trees, as well as the site's native mountain laurels.