The house and grounds were built in 1927 as a family compound. Donna LaPietra and Bill Kurtis are only the second owners in the manor's rich history and have been working for the past twenty-three years to refurbish some garden areas and create new ones. The centerpiece is a walled English-style garden with forty-foot perennial borders on either side of a sunken lawn that leads to a spring walk and rose room centered on an old fountain. Outside the east gate is a golden garden and an orchard/meadow bordered by a fenced potager, cutting garden, and circular herb garden. The sixty-five-acre property has two ponds, a fifteen-acre prairie, and a parkland of specimen trees; it is surrounded by a newly reclaimed oak-hickory forest. The most recent additions include a silver garden, a bronze garden, an ornamental lily pool, aqua-theatre, a three-tiered mound, a grass labyrinth with central fire pit with a tree house overlook, and a shrubbery with island beds. This year's Open Day will be celebrated with activities and festivities throughout the grounds, such as a club-car guided tour of the restored native prairie and beehives, and a honey tasting as well as all-day refreshments on the terrace, which will include a sampling of local and sustainable foods. There will also be separately ticketed house tours (tickets are limited and all proceeds go to the Garden Conservancy).