Mrs. Edward D. Brandegee

Mrs. Mary Bryant Brandegee (née Pratt) was a descendant of the prominent Weld family of Massachusetts. She and her first husband, Congressman Charles F. Sprague, owned a large estate in Brookline, Massachusetts, where later in life she would avidly breed and raise pedigreed poodles. The manor included an Italian garden that would prove influential among American designers during the early decades of the 20th century. It was among the first realized projects by the soon-to-be prominent landscape architect Charles A. Platt, who was hired after the family clashed with and dismissed the Olmsted Brothers from the project. Charles died in 1902 while Mary and their two daughters were traveling in Egypt and, a few... more.