[2] The house is located on an estate of 6 acres (2.428 hectares) with a garden, designed and developed in the 1960s by the famous landscape architect Fletcher Steele.
At the age of nineteen, Elihu Kirby (1801–1866) came to Henrietta, New York, and by his late twenties became a success in general merchandising.
The transportation took 10 days,[7] because power lines had to be avoided, the load weight was too much for some roads, and the two trailers had to be pulled over some roadless land.
The transportation gained some press coverage, especially when one of the structure-hauling trailers became mired in the mud of a cornfield[7] and when one power line was severed.
The downed power line caused some baseball fans to lose their television coverage of a World Series game.
[3] For the Turner House in 1963, the landscape architect Katherine Wilson Rahn designed and supervised the creation a long, straight drive bordered by sugar maples.
The culmination of the North Vista is a circular reflecting pool surrounded by a semicircle of towering cedar trees.
Although she respected Steele's design, Nancy Turner commissioned an indoor swimming pool, where she swam each morning.
She added a six-foot deep koi pool, with sluiceway and a waterfall, to the site of the Turners' former vegetable garden.
[9] Nancy Turner was also a valuable source of advice and knowledge for Robin Karson, the author of the 2003 book Fletcher Steele, Landscape Architect: An Account of the Gardenmaker's Life, 1885-1971.
She spent more than 50 years in the Rochester area, where she participated in many charitable organizations — particularly those reflecting her interest in the arts, gardening, landscape architecture, and historic preservation.
She did important volunteer work for the University of Rochester — particularly, the Memorial Art Gallery and the George Eastman House and Museum (where in the 1980s she led the restoration of its historic gardens).