Backyard and Beyond

Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world.

As John Burroughs said, “The place to observe nature is where you are.”

Corn-ithian

The heads of the columns at the Litchfield Villa, once the home of real estate baron E.C. Litchfield, are decorated with corn cobs instead of acanthus leaves. Alexander Jackson Davis, one of the pre-eminent architects of the day, designed this Italianate pile, which was completed in 1857. The rest of the brick building probably looked better in its original stucco…

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