[1] He was a painter, the son of a German garden architect, and she was the daughter of Wellington R. Burt, a lumber baron from Saginaw, and inherited in 1919 the estate of 950 acres (384 hectares) and part of the family fortune.

[1] Walter Beck was impressed by classical Chinese culture, especially by Wang Wei (王維) (698–761) who created scroll paintings and poems about gardens in the Wang-ch'uan cycle.

[3] Beck added numerous additional small gardens depicting individual scenes, called cup-gardens, using natural elements such as plants, rocks and streams for composed landscapes.

[5][1] Collins later became Chair of Harvard's Landscape Architecture program and was responsible for the design of the National Zoological Park and the redesign of the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden, among many other projects.

[4][6] At Innisfree, Collins created landscapes merging Romantic concepts with Chinese and Japanese garden design traditions which he studied in Japan.

[5] From 1980, Collins spent more time at Innisfree Garden, refining a "partnership with nature", knowing the influences of light and the seasons.

The 150-acre (61-hectare) garden features streams, waterfalls, terraces, retaining walls, rocks and plants based on principles of Chinese landscape design.

Kate Kerin, the garden's landscape curator, commented: "We believe that places like Innisfree, that feel peaceful and that connect people to nature and art, are needed now more than ever.

"[5] Instead of hosting weekend viewings of daffodils planted before 1950, volunteers cut around 4,500 of them and delivered them to Vassar Brothers Medical Center and The Fountains, an assisted-living facility nearby.