The property's history stretches back to the late 18th century, when it belonged to Frederick Hunnel. The original farmhouse was a modest two-story structure, expanded once in 1848 but otherwise unremarkable. When the Hutchesons arrived, Martha redesigned the house in the Colonial Revival style, honoring the building's heritage while asserting her own vision. In 1927, the noted architect William Lawrence Bottomley expanded it further. But the house was always secondary to the landscape surrounding it. Hutcheson treated the rolling terrain as her primary medium, sculpting gardens that drew the eye outward toward the Morris County hills rather than enclosing it within walls.

Martha Brookes Hutcheson was not merely a gardener with ambitions -- she was a trained landscape architect at a time when the profession barely existed for women. Her work at Merchiston Farm reflected the principles she championed: gardens should extend the architecture of the house into the landscape, creating a seamless dialogue between built and natural environments. The property features a reflecting pool, carefully framed vistas, and a sundial garden near the main house. Flowering trees and ornamental plantings follow sight lines that Hutcheson calibrated with an architect's precision. She lived and worked here until her death in 1959, refining the grounds over nearly five decades.

The site that earned a place on the National Register of Historic Places on November 13, 1989 includes six contributing buildings and six contributing structures, all unified by Hutcheson's design philosophy. Listed under its historic name, Merchiston Farm, the property was recognized specifically for its significance as the home of an important American landscape architect and for the quality of the landscaping itself. The buildings range from the main house to outbuildings that once supported the working estate, each placed to complement rather than compete with the garden's composition. Walking the grounds, you move through a series of outdoor rooms -- open meadow giving way to formal plantings, which in turn frame views of the namesake Bamboo Brook winding through the valley below.

Today the Morris County Park Commission operates Bamboo Brook as a public park and outdoor education center. Visitors can walk the same paths Hutcheson designed, past the reflecting pool and through gardens that still follow her original layout. The adjacent Willowwood Arboretum extends the green corridor, creating a combined landscape that offers one of the most rewarding horticultural walks in the state. What makes Bamboo Brook unusual among public gardens is its intimacy. This was not designed as a showpiece for public spectacle but as a private landscape -- a place where one woman spent a lifetime perfecting the relationship between house, garden, and the rolling countryside beyond.