Sofia Blanchard and
Peter Blanchard, trustees
and founders of
Greenwood Gardens
programs and events at Greenwood
Gardens, to ensure that visiting the
gardens became a serene and exhilarat-
ing experience. Peter, a great grandson
of financier and art collector Henry
Clay Frick, is also a trustee of the Frick
Museum in New York City,
“The property has been through
three major phases of ownership,”
says Rich. Christian William
Feigenspan, a Newark brewer, origi-
nally owned a wooden clapboard
house on the estate, in the late
1800s. In 1906, Joseph P. Day bought
the property and lived in Feigenspan’s
house until it burned down in 1911.
He then spent more than $1 million
to build a large Italianate mansion,
completed in 1914, and called the
estate “Pleasant Days.” Day was a
successful realtor and auctioneer in
the city and employed over more than
100 people to maintain the proper-
ty. “(Day) used this as a summer
home,” Peter says. “When Day
died in 1944, his children weren’t
interested in the house, and it was
sold. Things started to go downhill.”
Peter’s parents, Peter P Blanchard Jr.,
a lawyer, and Adelaide Childs Frick
Blanchard, a pediatrician, purchased
the property in 1949.
“They fell in love with the place
because of the proximity to the
reservation, and horseback riding,”
he says, “but they didn’t like the style
of the Day house, and had it torn
down.” In its place, they built th