Gardens

Three historic green spaces complement the Frick’s distinguished collection and unique interiors. Visitors are invited to explore one oasis at the heart of the museum, while two viewing gardens may be enjoyed from the street and several interior vantage points. Together, these serene cultivated spaces serve as natural extensions of the visual splendor of our buildings and works of art.

Fifth Avenue Garden | Garden Court | 70th Street Garden

Fifth Avenue Garden

The Fifth Avenue Garden is set back from the street, against the façade of The Frick Collection facing Central Park. Dating to 1914 and originally serving as the front yard of the Frick mansion, the garden endures as a visible reminder of the museum’s history as a private residence. Visitors cannot enter the garden but may enjoy its splendor from the street and inside the museum. One of the best views of the garden is from within the museum’s Portico Gallery, opened in 2011.

The garden’s grand lawn is framed by a formal framework of hedges, embellished with limestone steps and neoclassical urns. A mosaic pebble pathway—with motifs of turtles, acorns, and topiary trees, surrounded by a geometrical border—was supposedly a favored feature of Henry Clay Frick. The ironwork fence along Fifth Avenue is an early commission of Samuel Yellin, now considered a master of wrought-iron work of his time.

During the conversion of the Frick residence into a museum in 1935, the Fifth Avenue Garden’s current structure was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., son of the designer of Central Park, with an emphasis on symmetry. In 1939, the Board of Trustees decided to enhance the garden further with the addition of the now iconic magnolia trees: On either side of the lawn are two saucer magnolias (both later replacements), while the smaller one on the upper terrace is the original star magnolia. After blossoming annually as harbingers of spring, the magnolia trees are pruned meticulously each summer using a method called pollarding to maintain their shape and scale in relation to the mansion behind them.

Underneath the magnolias on either side of the lawn is an underplanting of native perennials comprised of sedges, ferns, and spring ephemerals. Hostas, azaleas, and boxwood surround this planting, keeping the symmetrical framework established by Olmsted Jr. On the upper terrace, Queen Elizabeth roses (originally suggested by Russell Page in 1977; see 70th Street Garden), surround the star magnolia with a border of low-growing plants such as lamb’s ear, lady’s mantle, Japanese forest grass, and coral bells.

Fifth Avenue Fence Border

Initially a privet hedge per Olmsted Jr.’s design, the bed along the Fifth Avenue fence was converted into an annual bed in the 1970s. Following the Frick’s 2025 renovation, the space is now being used for displays that connect the Fifth Avenue Garden to art on view inside the museum. Recent displays include an homage to Vermeer, coinciding with the summer 2025 exhibition Vermeer’s Love Letters; a spring 2026 bulb planting evoking an English cottage garden, inspired by Gainsborough: The Fashion of Portraiture; and a summer 2026 border with a color palette reminiscent of works in Ruffles & Ribbons: Fashion Plates from the Time of Marie Antoinette.

Plant List

Coming Soon | Virtual Tour MAGNOLIAS TIME-LAPSE VIDEO MAGNOLIAS: SPRING 2022 VIDEO

Spring Garden Party

The museum’s Fellows and Young Fellows enjoy rare access to the Fifth Avenue Garden at the annual Spring Garden Party, a festive evening celebrating the Frick’s iconic green spaces.

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Garden Court

The Garden Court, located at the heart of the Frick’s main floor, is beloved as a year-round oasis in New York City. Featuring stately columns, a central fountain, and a laylight ceiling, the space welcomes visitors to enjoy a respite amid the museum’s first-floor galleries, with select sculptures displayed among the greenery.

Replacing the open carriage court of the original Frick residence, the Garden Court was designed in the 1930s by the architect John Russell Pope, who was responsible for the conversion of the Frick mansion into a museum. The court’s paired Ionic columns and symmetrical planting beds were echoed in Pope’s later designs for the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Pope’s original plan was for the Garden Court to include a formal garden planting, as seen in early sketches. However, the laylight ceiling includes UV-restricted glass to protect the museum’s art and interior finishes, and the initial planting of trees, shrubs, and annuals did not survive long. Over the years, it became clear that low-light tropical plants would thrive best in this environment.

2025 Restoration

During the Frick’s 2021–25 renovation project, the Garden Court’s aged exterior skylights were replaced, and its original laylight ceiling was restored, with new, energy-efficient LED lighting. Additionally, the limestone interior and fountain were cleaned and repaired, the soil was removed and replaced with an interior-specific planting mix, and the court was replanted with the atmospheric mix of palms and tropical plants for which it became known. The current planting design was created based on recommendations from the horticulturists at Washington’s Smithsonian and National Gallery and Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, each of which face similar challenges of caring for plants within art museums.

Additionally, in the nearby Evans Education Hall, visitors can view a set of restored limestone caryatid sculptures that once adorned this space when it was the Frick family’s open-air porte-cochère.

Plant List

Coming Soon | Virtual Tour Garden Court 360° Video

70th Street Garden

The 70th Street Garden, designed by celebrated British landscape architect Russell Page in 1977, is an elevated garden with a central reflecting pool set within a small lawn, pea-gravel paths, and trees of different species that provide dappled shade.

The space is unique in that it was designed specifically as a viewing garden, with two distinct views: From inside the museum—notably in the James S. and Barbara N. Reibel Reception Hall—the visitor looks down upon a formal garden, with neatly clipped hedges and symmetrical plantings on either side of a dominant reflecting pool, which is filled with blue and white water lilies in the height of summer. Conversely, when viewing the garden from the outside, on East 70th Street, the visitor looks up into a less ordered space, into the canopies of trees set asymmetrically so that each trunk is visible.

The space is framed overall by north and east walls featuring carved panels from the Frick mansion’s original porte-cochère, while the west façade is modeled after the Grand Trianon at the Palace of Versailles. The unique design of the 70th Street Garden led The New York Times to call it one of Russell Page’s most important works upon his death, in 1985.

2025 Restoration

As part of the renovation, the 70th Street Garden was temporarily removed to allow for necessary waterproofing, for structural repairs to the eastern portion of the Frick’s buildings, and for the creation of new, subterranean public spaces below. The garden was then carefully restored by renowned public garden designer Lynden B. Miller, in collaboration with preservation architects Beyer Blinder Belle and landscape architects MPFP. The goal was to return the garden as faithfully as possible to Page’s original design. Stonework was conserved, pathways were reinforced, and new water-efficient irrigation systems were added. The restored garden includes many of the same trees and shrubs that Page selected for his original layout, as well as ones he wrote about often.

Plant List

Renovation Video