Manitoga shares designer's affinity for nature

By Bond Brungard
For the Poughkeepsie Journal

In 1939, Russel Wright designed a set of dinnerware so popular that the series, American Modern, sold 80 million pieces during a 20-year period.

But if he wanted the masses to eat in style at the supper table, he also wanted everyone to share the affinity he had for nature.

And in 1975, a year before he died, Wright opened to the public Manitoga, his designed landscape in nature.

Manitoga -- Algonquin meaning place of great spirit -- was a project that evolved from Wright's relationship with nature. Wright bought 80 acres of wooded Hudson Highlands in 1942 and proceeded to spend the rest of his life here applying his personal touches to the natural landscape.

When Wright and his wife, Mary, moved to this hillside, the landscape was marred by a deserted granite mine and unkempt because of overgrowth.

"This was really a ravaged landscape," said Annie Wright, Russel's daughter, who lives in Dragon Rock, a house designed to blend in with Manitoga's natural design. "It went from being a very personal place to a very public place."

Granite quarry transformed

Wright started with a former granite quarry, from which he formed a pond, and then carefully worked with the existing plants and granite rock formations on the hillside to present his subtle designs.

"This is very much a manipulated landscape, but people don't understand because it looks so natural," said Marcia Favrot, Manitoga's acting director.

Meandering through Manitoga's nearly 5 miles of trails, one finds remnants of man's touch on nature. There are those stone steps and the fallen tree that was used as a foot bridge, but there's also the discarded granite boulders that Wright laid out, intact with the hardware used for mining.

Wright may have diverted a creek to create a pond from the quarry, but he also used animal paths that crisscrossed the landscape. Up the hill from Quarry Pond, Wright sought a personal feel with nature by intentionally weaving a path through mountain laurel and around the granite clusters that dominate the land.

"He wanted visitors to brush up against the large boulders," said Rebecca DeSousa, a naturalist and educator. "Most of the paths are not in a straight line; he wanted them to enhance the greatest features."