At most of the James River plantations, the garden spaces were on the front or the back, but at Tuckahoe, a boxwood maze was planted on the East and became an extraordinary garden feature. An 18th-century boxwood walk still commands attention as a major axis while it also captures the imagination as The Ghost Walk of local lore. As a young girl, Chief Justice John Marshall’s grandmother was made to marry an elderly minister when she had run off with the man she loved, the caretaker of Tuckahoe. Legend has it that the ghost of the unhappy bride still walks the grounds in search of her lost love, her crying sometimes heard on the wind. When the current owners’ uncle died at a young age, his mother, Mrs. N. Addison Baker, asked famed landscape architect Charles F. Gillette to design in his honor a Memorial Garden, which was situated at the end of the boxwood walk, lending further distinction to the property.
Ownership of the plantation is a family affair; keeping such a business viable in today’s world is an exercise in creativity as well as a labor of love. One of the current tri-owners, Jessie Thompson Krusen, has written an excellent monograph on Tuckahoe that started as her senior thesis at Wellesley. Niece Carey Thompson Viego was the architect-in-residence who oversaw the restoration of the house for the family. She worked with conservationists, architectural historians and contractors.
Other owners, Tad and Sue Thompson, who moved their young family into the home in 1977, appreciate the historians and landscape professionals who have been so generous with their suggestions and their support of Tuckahoe over the years. Even famed Jeffersonian biographer Dumas Malone made the trip to Tuckahoe in his ripe old age, to lend advice. “They all recognize it as a special place, as part of America’s heritage,” says Sue Thompson. “You can tell people really care.” She emphasizes how important it is that the next generation cares as deeply that the house and the land around it be preserved. Virginians can take heart that there are easements on 300 of the 649 acres so that land can never be developed.
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