Three Retiring Board Members

Suzanne Rheinstein

After leading the way to a new avenue for The Garden Conservancy’s preservation e fforts, Suzanne Rheinstein will retire from the board of directors when her term ends in December. In 2014, inspired by her late husband Fred’s illustrious career in television and media, and by her own belief that gardens are most meaningful when experienced firsthand, Suzanne began conversations with Conservancy leadership about how to capture and share the essence of a garden: its beauty and its stories. Today, the Suzanne and Frederic Rheinstein Garden Documentation Program is achieving this goal by creating new documentary film footage and organizing historical archival materials that capture and preserve America’s gardens through our Documentation Program.

Suzanne joined the Conservancy’s board in 2004 and has been an energetic ambassador, introducing and involving countless friends in the organization’s mission and activities. She has provided generous annual, endowment, and program support, and she also helped expand the Society of Fellows garden-study tours program to international destinations, beginning with Belgium in 2009. She has served on numerous committees, most recently, as chair of the Nominations Committee. She co-chaired the Conservancy’s 25th Anniversary Celebration and has served on the Executive, Development, and Communications committees. Upon her retirement, she will be named a Director Emerita.

She is an internationally renowned interior designer and author whose firm, Suzanne Rheinstein & Associates, works with clients all over the country and is frequently featured in design magazines. Her own garden, in the Windsor Square area of Los Angeles, is included in Outstanding American Gardens: A Celebration – 25 Years of the Garden Conservancy and has opened to the public during The Garden Conservancy Open Days. She also enjoys time in a serene new garden in Montecito, CA.

Howard G. Seitz

Gerry Seitz , will be retiring in December, after serving as The Garden Conservancy’s legal counsel from its beginning in 1989 to the present. He was elected to the Conservancy’s board of directors in 1996 and named Secretary/Treasurer, a position he held through 2021. Gerry’s law career includes 20 years as a partner at O’Connor, Murphy, Ryan & Seitz and, more recently, an active practice in business, commercial law, and trusts and estates with the international law firm Duane Morris LLP, and with Satterlee Stephens Burke & Burke, which merged with Duane Morris in 2020.

Over 30 years ago, Gerry and his wife, Sue, found an 1890 carriage house set on an outcropping of rock overlooking the Kirby Mill Pond and its historic, red tide mill in Rye, NY. Connected to Long Island Sound, the pond is a haven for egrets, herons, and swans. At “Rye on the Rocks,” they enjoy finding plants for their rock and stone walls, terraces, and courtyard, and they treasure the sun rising from the East.

Gerry has logged many years of dedicated service on the Conservancy’s Executive and Finance and Investments committees. He has also been a member of the Long Range Planning and 25th Anniversary Celebration committees. His experience with governance in Westchester County, NY, as a member of the City Council of Rye, informed his valuable service on the Conservancy’s Rocky Hills Advisory Committee. Since 2000, Gerry and Sue have participated in at least fourteen Society of Fellows garden-study tours in the U.S. and traveled with the Fellows to Portugal in 2018. They are steadfast annual donors and have helped build the Conservancy’s endowment fund.

Patricia A. Steffan

Patsy Steffan will be retiring this December after serving as a member of the board of directors since 1996, and she will be named a Director Emerita. Patsy offered her expertise in writing and editing to The Garden Conservancy’s programs. She helped write the Conservancy’s 25th anniversary book, Outstanding American Gardens: A Celebration – 25 Years of the Garden Conservancy, which was published by Abrams in 2015, and she served on the Communications Committee. After graduating from Smith College, Patsy worked for Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, and after the birth of her son, continued her career as a freelance writer and editor contributing to several college-level textbooks. More recently, she held an administrative position at Allen-Stevenson, an elementary school for boys in New York City.

Patsy and her husband, Andrew, tend an old-fashioned cottage garden on the East End of Long Island, NY, where Patsy is a member of the Garden Club of East Hampton and the Horticultural Alliance of the Hamptons. Much of their time though is spent being dedicated New York City dwellers, where Patsy participates in the Horticultural Society of New York activities.

Both Patsy and Andrew played key roles in The Garden Conservancy’s endowment campaign, providing leadership support and serving on the Campaign Committee. Patsy has been a member of the Audit Committee and the 25th Anniversary Committee. Generous in their annual giving as members of the Society of Fellows, the couple has joined the Fellows in studying gardens on 20 tours in the U.S. and participated in Fellows tours to London and the Cotswolds (2010) and France (2011).

Peter P. Blanchard III

We deeply regret to report that Peter Blanchard died on August 7, 2022, at just 70 years of age. Peter and his wife Sofia were members of The Garden Conservancy’s Society of Fellows and they worked closely with the Conservancy for 20 years. They notably helped establish Greenwood Gardens as a vibrant public garden that benefits the community in Short Hills, NJ, and the greater metropolitan area. Peter grew up on the Greenwood Gardens property, which his parents purchased in 1949 from the estate of real-estate auctioneer Joseph P. Day. Peter’s parents built a new Colonial Revival-style home, and they improved the gardens, laying out new allées, planting hundreds of ornamental trees and

Dame Angela Lansbury

Angela Lansbury, the founding Honorary Chair of The Garden Conservancy, died on October 11, 2022, just before her 97th birthday. In 1989, when The Garden Conservancy founders Anne and Frank shrubs, and adding ponds and sculpture.

Peter’s father also laid the groundwork to preserve the property for public use, and after his death in 2000, Peter and Sofia carried them forward. They reached out to The Garden Conservancy, and in 2002, the Conservancy’s board accepted Greenwood Gardens as a preservation project. From 2003 to 2005, the Conservancy agreed to assume management and administrative responsibility for the property, which opened for public guided tours. An ambitious 10-year renewal effort began in 2006, with improved public facilities and stabilized historic features. In 2013, the gardens reopened to the public, and now offer programs in horticulture, nature photography, birding, and jazz concerts. The Conservancy

Cabot were forming an Advisory Committee to assist in launching the Conservancy as a nonprofit organization, they asked Angela to serve as Honorary Chair. She attended the inaugural meeting that year and remained involved for years afterward, even serving as Honorary Chair of the organization’s 25th Anniversary Celebration in 2014. She spoke at the Garden Conservancy Tribute to Frank Cabot on April 30, 2012, at the New York Botanical Garden.

Angela and Anne Cabot built their friendship

Evelyn Moore McGee

Patti McGee was a cornerstone of The Garden Conservancy’s foundation, anchoring the newly evolving national organization firmly in the Southeast from her home base in Charleston, SC. We are heartbroken to report that she passed away on November 11th at age 87. A talented and avid plantswoman with a deep appreciation for Southern garden history, Patti was recruited by Frank Cabot for the Advisory Committee that would launch the Conservancy in 1989. She was elected to the Board of Directors in 1991 and served for 24 years before retiring with the title Director Emerita. Patti filled vitally important roles on the board: chairing the Preservation Project Selection Committee for five years, serving on the Long Range continues to advise the garden’s board and staff members. decades earlier after Angela and her recently widowed mother left London with Angela’s young siblings during World War II. Angela spent time at the country homes of Anne’s father, diplomat George W. Perkins, and his wife Linn. During the 1970s, Angela became an enthusiastic amateur gardener after she moved to County Cork, Ireland, with her husband, Peter Shaw, and two children. The house they bought at the time was on 20 acres with a walled garden. They returned to Ireland, where Angela was a citizen, later in life.

Planning Committee, expanding the Open Days program, and hosting garden-study tours for the Society of Fellows. The fact that the Conservancy’s tenth anniversary was held in Charleston is a testament to her leadership.

Patti was a dedicated, hands-on advocate for the preservation of important Southern gardens, including the Elizabeth Lawrence Garden and Montrose in North Carolina and the Pearl Fryar Garden in South Carolina. She and her husband Peter welcomed many new members and Open Days hosts to the Conservancy. The couple generously provided for the Conservancy’s future success with a bequest, in addition to their loyal annual support.

A native of South Carolina, Patti inherited her love of gardening from her mother.

Peter Blanchard was a champion of natural resource conservation in New Jersey, Blue Hill Bay, Maine, and abroad. A great-grandson of Henry Clay Frick, Peter also served for many years as a trustee of The Frick Collection and the Helen Clay Frick Foundation. He enjoyed landscape painting and drawing in nature and often led tours and workshops about art and nature journaling at Greenwood Gardens.

Angela Lansbury had a highly acclaimed career in film, theater, and television for over seven decades, earning six Tony Awards, multiple Golden Globe Awards, and a devoted following in the United States and the United Kingdom.

She was a lifelong member of the Low Country Garden Club and very generous in opening her own outstanding garden. Peter shared her deep interest in American history, and the influential couple received the Mary Ramsay Civic Award in 2017 for their extraordinary gifts to the Spoleto Festival and the Charleston community. She and Peter were founding members of the Charleston Horticultural Society, and Patti was involved with the Southern Garden History Society and served as the South Carolina advisor to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.