Noted landscape architect Fletcher Steele designed the wrought iron pergola that sits on the north end of the Ballard Garden in 1930 as the entrance to the garden ballroom he designed for the Ridgefield estate of George and Mary May White Doubleday. Mrs. Doubleday was a longtime member and past president of the Ridgefield Garden Club. The pergola remained on their property after the estate was sold and subdivided in the 1960’s. In 1991, the Westmoreland Homeowners Association donated the pergola to the Ridgefield Preservation Trust, which donated it to the Ridgefield Garden Club on the condition it be placed in the park. The pergola was refurbished and moved to Ballard Gardens in 1992. In 2021, the Ridgefield Garden Club, with help from a generous grant from the Richardson Fund, undertook a restoration of the pergola. In 2022, the club worked with the Westmoreland Homeowners Association to move two of Fletcher Steele's benches, part of the same ballroom project and no longer in use at Westmoreland, to Ballard Garden. The benches were restored in 2023 and 2024 with generous grants from the Ridgefield Thrift Shop, and have been installed at each end of the garden.
The pergola as it appeared in 1930 at Westmoreland, the Ridgefield estate of George and Mary Doubleday.
The pergola in 1930, at one end of the garden ballroom with the benches somewhat visible on the right under the striped umbrellas.
Several Ridgefield Garden Club members at the restored pergola in 2021.
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Ridgefield Garden Club members at the restored Fletcher Steele bench at the north end of Ballard
Garden.