Barnett Shepherd in the garden he has been
working on for 27 years, at an historic house.

Barnett Shepherd has been working for 27 years on the garden of an historic house he does not own, and he has been working that long on restoring the house as well. The house is the Jacob Tysen House, on Staten Island, a borough of New York City that boasts many historic and vintage houses that Barnett has done much over the years to help preserve.

The house, named for Judge Jacob Tysen, who died on Staten Island in 1848, is a Greek Revival mansion dating from 1835. It was moved to its present site from its original waterside location after it was purchased by the Trustees of what was Sailors' Snug Harbor, a home for aged sailors, to serve as a home for the resident physician. Its property adjoins the grounds of what is now the Snug Harbor Cultural Center.

Sailors' Snug Harbor, with its collection of 19th century architecturally significant buildings and surrounding parkland, was purchased by the city in 1973, and is now a city park. It is the home of various arts organizations, and has been designated a National Historic Landmark District.

The Jacob Tysen House, an historic
house on Staten Island, New York City.

The Jacob Tysen House is owned by the Staten Island Historical Society. The house was provided to Barnett as a residence while he was Executive Director of the Society, from 1981 to 2000, and he has continued to live there as resident caretaker. He has furnished the house with his collection of antiques, art, and family heirlooms, and gives guided tours to groups who have submitted requests to the Society, although currently the house is closed to the public for additional restoration.

In addition to designing and maintaining the surrounding garden, Barnett has spent over $100,000 of his own money in his continuing efforts to restore the house. He does all this, thanks to the appreciation of certain investments over a long period, for a house that he does not own because of his passion for preserving historic houses, and for gardening.

Barnett is Staten Island’s pre-eminent historian and preservation activist. In 1977, he gathered a small group of friends to organize the Preservation League of Staten Island for the purpose of giving walking tours, and was its founding president. He gave walking tours for several years, four in May and four in October, to show points of interest in Staten Island’s architectural history to a growing corps of preservationist enthusiasts.

The Preservation League continues to promote historic preservation through home tours as well as a yearly awards program, a newsletter, and technical assistance.

Barnett on staircase in Jacob Tysen
House, which he continues to restore.

Barnett gave a walking tour of his garden at the Jacob Tysen House to a party of one recently. The front garden, with a conical boxwood prominent in front of the house, illustrated Barnett’s belief that a front garden should be plain and green, healthy and beautiful all year round.

In general, to Barnett a garden is mainly green, but with various shades and textures of green, like many a Victorian garden. It should have a neat structure, in his view, and be balanced, but not strictly symmetrical. Flowers, says Barnett, are a bonus. His garden does have a variety of flowers that bloom at different times of the year. The tour was at the end of September of this year.

Garden at right of house leading to the
rear, with different greens and blooms.

On the right side of the house were dwarf candytuft, hosta, and English ivy bordering a bed of pink geranium. On the other side of the bluestone path and against the outside of the house was pachysandra. Further along on the right, past a Little Gem magnolia tree, in the rear and against an 1890’s brick wall, there were hay-scented ferns, fronted by Lily of the Valley and violets.

In the rear garden different colors and textures of green predominated, with some flowers in bloom. Barnett has draped the rear fence dividing the property from that of the Snug Harbor Cultural Center with a creeping hydrangea that he started with one plant 20 years ago.

Barnett picking leaves off hay-scented ferns
against 1890's brick wall in side garden in rear.

Some feet in front of that fence, in the left rear section of the garden, was an arch of autumn clematis that had grown so much that the latticework supporting it needed to be reinforced. In front of it, to the right, was English boxwood, fronted in turn by comfrey, with large long green leaves, then lamium, a ground cover not in bloom at the time. A view of the rear of the house was framed by crepe myrtle trees. Pachysandra and hydrangeas were at the base of the porch. At the side of the porch and leading back to the front garden was another arch, of creeping hydrangea. To the left of the arch was a stunning bed of brilliantly colored red Angel Wing begonias, and other begonias, and behind them a lace cap hydrangea.

Picking fallen leaves off English box-
wood near arch of autumn clematis.

Barnett planted his first garden in Greenville, Mississippi, when he was nine or ten years old. He was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1938, but his family moved from there when he was very young, first to Winterville, Mississippi, and then, in a few years, seven miles away to Greenville, Mississippi, where Barnett grew up.

In Winterville, the family lived with Barnett’s mother’s great aunt by marriage, “Aunt Lillye.” Barnett writes in a memoir that “Aunt Lillye and Mother made fine gardens around the house.” When Barnett planted his first garden in Greenville, an oval bed of marigolds and zinnia, Aunt Lillye told him that he had put the plants too close together and would have to pluck some out. Barnett didn’t like that. But he did it.

Crepe myrtle trees frame a view of the rear of
the Jacob Tysen House and wrap-around porch

As a child, Barnett was also attracted to historical places. His mother collected antiques and worked in an antiques shop, and Barnett spent summers in Natchez, Mississippi, in the antebellum mansion of a family friend. In high school, however, Barnett set aside his artistic interests for religion. As a Southerner he felt responsible for segregation, and in the 1950’s and 60’s he devoted himself to overcoming the wrongs of segregation through the Presbyterian Church.

After graduation from Alma College, in Alma, Michigan, with a B.A. in English Literature, Barnett obtained a Master of Divinity degree in 1964 from Union Theological Seminary, in New York City, and was a minister for five years.

From Union Theological Seminary he was sent to a church in Birmingham that was the only Presbyterian Church in favor of integration, and he found it difficult to work within the denomination as a whole. He was at the church at a tumultuous time for the Civil Rights movement and when James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi, in June 1964. He worked hard to get the Presbyterian Church to open its doors, he says, but he was not good in confrontational situations, and left the church in Birmingham after a year and a half for one in Columbus, Indiana.

Barnett finds something to pick off the Angel
Wing begonias at the left side of the house.

In Columbus, a large corporation had begun financing designs by high-profile architects for virtually all the civic buildings, and Barnett loved that. The building of his church was 19th century Gothic Revival, but the church was undergoing changes in liturgy designed for a more participatory service, and hired a prominent architect to redesign the church's interior in a more contemporary style. Barnett thought that the ideas the architect came up with were wonderful, but they were voted down. At this point Barnett decided that it would be more fulfilling for him to pursue his artistic side in his work, and his religion on an individual basis. He is a member of Christ Church, New Brighton (Episcopal) on Staten Island, where the splendid gardens are cared for by Barnett's partner, Nick Dowen.

Indiana University, in Bloomington, Indiana, was not far from Columbus, and Barnett went there to take courses in art history and painting. He got a Master’s degree in art history in 1970 and went off to teach art history as an instructor in the College of Architecture and Fine Arts of the University of Florida, in Gainesville, Florida.

Barnett at creeping hydrangea arch
leading to path at left side of house.

Finding himself only one chapter ahead of the students, Barnett says, and feeling bored, he decided to go to New York, where the art was, to see the real thing – and the buildings. He went there without a job or a place to stay, but he arranged to meet a friend on Staten Island who invited him to dinner. The friend and his wife had a commune in a large Victorian house. Barnett moved in with them and stayed for five years.

He got a job as a janitor at the Unitarian Church on Staten Island and a job on Wall Street doing typing three days a week, and painted in his free time, thinking he might be a painter. When he approached the director of the Staten Island Museum, the director told him to look around Staten Island to see what he could do.

Barnett saw Sailors’ Snug Harbor and started to do research on its history on his own. Eventually, the Museum hired him to do this through the federal government’s CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act) program. Barnett’s book, Sailors’ Snug Harbor: 1801-1976, was published in 1979 by the Snug Harbor Cultural Center in association with the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences.

Barnett was then given a post at the Museum, where his specialty was Staten Island architecture. Assisted by more than 70 local volunteers, he conducted a survey of more than 2,000 buildings on Staten Island and was Exhibition Director for “Staten Island: An Architectural History,” at the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences in 1979.

His next job was with the Staten Island Historical Society, where he was the Executive Director from 1981 to 2000. In this post, he was also the Director of Historic Richmond Town, an historic site and outdoor museum that is a joint project of the Staten Island Historical Society and the City of New York.

In addition to writing many articles, Barnett has written or co-authored three books thus far. In addition to his book on Sailors' Snug Harbor, he assisted the author in the preparation of a book about Sandy Ground, an African American community on Staten Island dating from 1850, Sandy Ground Memories, by Lois A. H. Mosley, published by the Staten Island Historical Society in 2003. Barnett also wrote an introduction and other essays for the book.

Most recently, he has written a large and copiously illustrated book about a section of Staten Island that was enriched in the 19th and early 20th century by its proximity to the oyster beds of Raritan Bay. The book, Tottenville: The Town the Oyster Built, was published in 2008 by the Preservation League of Staten Island and the Tottenville Historical Society.

Rear view of Lelia Roberts' house; the
long driveway ends at Brownell Street.

Along with his research, writing and lecturing activities and work on the Jacob Tysen House and garden, Barnett has taken on another major project recently. He has undertaken to restore a house dating from 1848 that was bequeathed to him by a long-time friend, Lelia Lee Roberts. The house is a designated New York City Landmark, the Boardman-Mitchell House. Lelia's house, as Barnett refers to it, is one of two houses that date from 1848 on a Staten Island street filled with original Victorian houses.

The street is Brownell Street, and the property of the Boardman-Mitchell House runs from Brownell Street through to Bay Street, so that the house has two addresses, 33 Brownell Street, and 710 Bay Street.

The garden planted by Barnett on the left side
of the drive at the entrance from Brownell St.

From 33 Brownell Street, a long stretch of property leads to the back of the Lelia Roberts House, leaving Barnett scope for design, planting, and restoration of gardens on both sides of the long driveway, along the sides of the house, and in front. The front of the house overlooks Bay Street, a commercial thoroughfare, from a high perch. The house was in almost total disrepair, leaving Barnett scope for a major restoration.

Barnett consults with painter about
the restoration work on the library.

On another recent guided tour for a party of one, Barnett explained that in the garden to the left of the driveway as you enter the property, he has planted hosta and hybrid Iris between crepe myrtle trees, and several types of white hydrangea along the fence.

Upon entering the house, he spoke first to the painter restoring a large room that was a library and is still filled with books. Down the hallway, to the front of the house, was a pair of doors to an entryway that had not been used for decades. A room off the hallway at the front of the house was being meticulously and authentically restored.

Barnett is unfazed by the peril of gardening
around a tree above a steep drop to Bay St.

Going back outside the house and around the side to the front, Barnett showed the planting he has been restoring on a narrow stretch of land high above busy Bay Street. Beneath a huge mulberry tree are hosta, lilyturf and impatiens.

Barnett has allotted $100,000 toward the restoration of the Boardman-Mitchell House, but he acknowledges that he will probably be spending a great deal more. He hopes in a few years to be able to sell the property to a buyer with his aesthetic, but he does not expect to profit financially from this venture. It is not a real estate project for Barnett, but a preservation project, and he loves doing it.

Barnett may be retired, in an official sense, but he is a very hard-working gentleman.

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