Gate/Gateway

History

Ubiquitous in the American landscape, fences, walls, and hedges required openings or passages. As Noah Webster (1828) stated, a gate could refer to either the opening or the elements fitted into it. A distinction was sometimes made identifying a gateway as the opening and a gate as the elements that closed the opening. The terms, however, were often interchangeable. The gate and gateway served both practical and symbolic functions in landscape design and were related to other features, such as special stairs, stiles, posts, or turnstiles that regulated access to pedestrian or horse traffic. The positioning of these features was an essential part of a landscape design’s circulation pattern, as well as its visual organization. As a barrier, the gate or gateway provided protection and privacy, and as a passageway it provided access and control of foot and vehicular traffic. But such access points also signified the social importance of entrances and passageways, whether to an estate (as at Montgomery Place in Dutchess County, N.Y.) or a holy ground (as at the “holy mount” in New Lebanon, N.Y.). In the landscape design of residences, the gate or gateway often presented visitors with their first impression of an estate and conveyed the passage between public and private realms. When, in 1720, William Byrd II greeted honored guests at Westover, Va., on the James River, he “received them at the outer gate.” In images of residences, the gate was often placed in the foreground of the picture and was often shown open, possibly as a symbol of hospitality. In both public and private landscapes, the gate was often sited on the central axis of a building, marking the main approach, framing the building’s front façade and doorway [Fig. 1], and directing views from the house into the distant landscape. A gate both enabled and marked the transition from one area to another, such as between yards devoted to different activities, between a work space and a more ornamental garden or front lawn, or between different sections of a garden [Fig. 2].

In spaces such as parks, public gardens, and commons, gates marked public entrances. Samuel McIntire’s design (1802) for the west gate of Washington Square in Salem, Mass., included a wooden archway with a carved gilded eagle resting atop a medallion of Gen. George Washington. In 1790, at Gray’s Garden in Philadelphia the public similarly entered though “an elegant arched gate . . . guarded by the figure of a satyr.” A watercolor painting of City Hall Park in New York around 1825 depicts two gates in the iron fence that are noteworthy not only for their elaborate gateposts but also because they are mounted on wheels to facilitate movement [Fig. 3].

Depending on its context, gate or gateway design ranged from simple utility to elaborate ornamentation [Fig. 4]. J. C. Loudon’s 1826 discussion of the gate exemplified the range of possible styles and materials. Whatever the style, the construction of a gate necessitated a balance between strength and lightness so that it might serve this purpose with a minimum of support. According to Loudon, a gate placed between pastures or animal yards needed only to be a simple wooden frame and boards strong enough to restrain the animals. In contrast, Benjamin Henry Latrobe’s 1798 plan for the State Penitentiary in Richmond, Va., included specifications for a gate of the “utmost highth.”

The decorative treatment of gates varied, as Loudon noted, “according to the character of the scene,” and there were numerous published designs for a variety of styles [Figs. 5 and 6]. Thomas Jefferson drew a gate [Fig. 7] inspired by the Chinese lattice popularized in books such as William Chambers’s Dissertation on Oriental Gardening (1772). Mount Auburn and Lowell Cemeteries in Massachusetts, and New Haven Burying Ground in Connecticut, included entrance gates in an Egyptian style whose “imposing . . . massiveness” and “eternal duration” were symbolically appropriate for the sites. In contrast, C. M. Hovey in 1841 criticized the gate at Downing’s residence for its “grecian” style because it contrasted to the Gothic architecture of the main house. Highly visible gates made suitable niches or platforms for statuary, urns, crests or other decorative sculpture and carving. In Boston in 1721 Judge Samuel Sewall decorated his gate leading to the street with carved cherubim heads. Latrobe reported in 1806 that an Italian sculptor was at work on a “Free Eagle” and “Colossal” for the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. William Dering’s 1754 portrait of George Booth depicted the sitter in front of a grand entrance gate flanked by statues [Fig. 8]. With the development of cast iron, decorative work on gates, such as those for rural cemetery family plots at Mount Auburn and at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, N.Y., became more affordable and abundant [Fig. 9] (see Fence and Statue).

Gates were often painted in colors contrasting with an adjacent wall or fence. As Humphry Repton noted, this treatment emphasized the principle entrance gate, assuring that “no one may mistake it.” Marie L. Pilsbury’s Louisiana Plantation Scene (c. 1830) shows how painted gates stood out in the landscape [Fig. 10].

The gates of large estates, institutions, and rural cemeteries sometimes also incorporated a lodge or gatehouse such as those illustrated by William Struthers (1842) [Fig. 11], and described by James Thatcher (1830) at Hyde Park and Thomas Kirkbride (1848) at the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane in Philadelphia. In addition to their enhancement of the entranceway, these gate lodges served as residences for the gatekeeper.

-- Elizabeth Kryder-Reid