The Jay Estate's award-winning gardens are in full public season, offering Rye and Harrison residents free access to more than two acres of redesigned landscape at 210 Boston Post Road.

The 23-acre National Historic Landmark, operated by the nonprofit Jay Heritage Center, opens its gardens Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Nelson Byrd Woltz, the landscape architecture firm also redesigning the grounds at Monticello and Mount Vernon, led the $1.35 million rehabilitation. Principal Thomas Woltz and team members Mark Strieter and Charlotte Barrows created what the center calls not a period recreation but a "richly interpreted rehabilitation" that restores lost visual relationships while telling the stories of the site's diverse inhabitants across thousands of years.

"As landscape architects, we have always known the importance of public space," Woltz said in the center's listing of garden hours. "And right now, the opportunity to breathe new life into an outdoor space of this historic importance feels that much more essential."

Three stone-walled garden rooms, their dry-laid walls dating to the late 18th century, now hold largely native and drought-resistant species. Visitors will find a picturesque parterre, an outdoor classroom with 16 rotating vegetable beds, a reflecting pool and sensory garden, a 100-foot-long rose arbor reproducing a 19th-century original, and a pollinator pathway. Invasive mugwort, Japanese knotweed and porcelain berry gave way to red twig dogwood, arrowwood viburnum and American pillar rose.

The design also honors the Valentine Family, enslaved and freed people of African descent who lived, worked and were buried at the property. Caesar Valentine, the last enslaved resident, was freed in 1824 and remained at the estate until his death and burial there in 1847. The site was originally Lenape land before becoming the family seat of Founding Father John Jay, who helped abolish slavery in New York State.

The project was funded by a $500,000 Mid-Hudson Regional Economic Development Council grant from New York State Parks, matched with more than $850,000 raised by the Jay Heritage Center through private and foundation donations, according to the center's groundbreaking announcement. The center receives no annual funding from New York State, Westchester County or the City of Rye.

Suzanne Clary, president of the Jay Heritage Center's board of trustees and executive director, has led the fundraising effort. Lucia Maestro serves as horticultural director.

The gardens have earned the 2023 McKim, Mead & White Award for Landscape Design from the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, along with recognition from New York State Parks and the Garden Club of America.

Two steel sculptures by artist Jorge Otero-Pailos are installed in the restored parterres, framing the central path. A reception with the artist is scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 10, at 5:30 p.m. The center's annual Jay Medal Soirée, celebrating America at 250, takes place Saturday, Sept. 19, at 5:30 p.m.