Intimate English Art and Garden Tours

One year after forming Caplan Rose, a travel company that organizes private tours of gardens and cultural destinations in rural England, Katharine Battle and Emily Goldstein, friends and Sag Harbor residents, have announced three 2018 excursions, the first of which will focus on gardens and art in the West of England from April 29 through May 4.

A land-only excursion for 8 to 12 people, the spring tour in Somerset and Devon will feature private visits to historic and contemporary gardens led by owners or their head gardeners. Highlights include gardens designed by Arne Maynard, Dan Pearson, and Piet Oudolf, and visits to the art gallery Hauser & Wirth Somerset and a pioneering sculpture park. 

Caplan Rose will meet the travelers at Heathrow Airport and escort them back at the end of the trip. All transportation will be by chauffeur-driven mini-coach. Accommodations will be in a country house hotel set on 18 acres in Somerset and an Elizabethan manor house in Devon. Both hotels feature farm-to-table dining from their own kitchen gardens. 

From June 17 through June 22, a second tour for a small group of watercolorists will focus on English landscape and architecture in Wessex. Travelers will be based in a country pub and spend each day exploring the area’s gardens, market towns, and countryside. A third excursion, whose dates are available on request, will feature the iconic gardens of the Cotswolds.

Born in Scotland and educated in England, Ms. Battle lived and worked in England, Italy, and Mexico before moving to the United States in 1997 with her husband, John Battle, an ornamental metalsmith. Ms. Goldstein has worked as a gallery director and private art adviser and in 2004 founded the Drawing Room in East Hampton with Victoria Munroe. She is married to Stan Stokowski, a gardener with a background in ornamental horticulture.

More information about the company is available at caplanrose.com.