Right now, Old Westbury Gardens is doing two things at once. It is hosting the tail end of a LEGO sculpture exhibition that took one artist months to build and drew crowds all summer. And it is quietly getting ready to be nearly empty for about three weeks in September, before the next round of programming starts. Most people who live near the Gardens know about the first thing. Almost nobody plans around the second.
That gap matters more than it sounds like it should. The same $22 ticket gets you a completely different experience depending on which Saturday you show up.
The Bricks Are Leaving on September 7
Sean Kenney's Nature Connects exhibition has been on the grounds since May, and this is its first appearance anywhere in New York State, according to iLoveNY's press materials. Seventeen sculptures, built from more than 300,000 LEGO bricks, are spread across roughly two miles of trail through the property, according to the iLoveNY announcement. The scale of individual pieces is what gets people to stop walking: the Hummingbird sculpture took Kenney 269 hours and 35,508 bricks to build and stands more than seven feet tall, while the Monarch on Milkweed took 377 hours and 60,549 bricks to reach just over four feet, based on figures the artist shared with Patch.
Kenney has said the goal was never just spectacle. "It's wonderful to see my sculptures continuing to inspire people of all ages to connect with nature," he told iLoveNY when the exhibit opened.
The show closes for good on Monday, September 7, still open daily except Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. right up to that date, per the official listing. If you have been meaning to see it, the calendar is not generous. You have about four weekends left.
One Saturday for the Bagpipes
Before that closing date, there is a single day worth circling for a completely different reason. The Long Island Celtic Festival and Highland Games returns to the Gardens on Saturday, August 22, per the event page. The festival itself runs one day only, and the LEGO sculptures stay up for a few more weekends after it. If you want bagpipes and giant LEGO monarchs on the same visit, August 22 is the day to combine them. If you'd rather skip the festival crowd, any other weekend before September 7 still gets you the exhibit on its own.
The Three Weeks Nobody Puts on the Calendar
Here's the part that doesn't show up on any events flyer. After Nature Connects closes on September 7, the next dated program on the Gardens' public calendar is a Storybook Stroll on Saturday, October 3, confirmed on the venue's event calendar. That leaves roughly three and a half weeks, from early September through early October, with no major ticketed draw pulling people onto the grounds.
The Gardens themselves don't take a break during that stretch. This is exactly the window when the property's 200 acres, once the private estate of John S. Phipps and Margarita Grace Phipps and now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, start shifting into fall color. Trees on the grounds move into orange, red, and yellow through September, October, and into November, according to a visitor guide covering the property's seasonal shifts. The formal garden rooms that anchor the experience the rest of the year don't close for the gap either. The Walled Garden, the Rose Garden, the Long Tree Allée, and the Koi Pond are all still open and walkable, as a recent family-visit guide describes them:
- Walled Garden – the enclosed "secret garden" section kids gravitate toward
- Rose Garden – brick paths and boxwood hedges framing the beds
- Long Tree Allée – a long shaded stretch built for a slow walk or a kid burning off energy
- Koi Pond – benches nearby for anyone who wants to sit for a while
- Cafe in the Woods – on-site food option for a picnic lunch on the Great Lawn
None of that requires a special ticket or a specific date. It just requires showing up on a weekend when nobody else has a reason to.
Same $22, Different Garden
General admission is $22, with $20 for visitors 62 and older or full-time students, $12 for kids ages 7 to 17, and free entry for children 6 and under, per the exhibition's official pricing. That price has not changed all season. It was the cost of admission on a packed Saturday in July when the LEGO exhibit was new, it will be the cost on August 22 when the bagpipes are playing, and it will be the same number in mid-September when the property is nearly empty.
The ticket buys access to the grounds. It does not guarantee a crowd, and for a stretch of nearly a month, it guarantees the opposite. If your idea of a good visit involves actually hearing the birds around the Koi Pond rather than navigating a stroller line, the math favors the quiet weeks.
When the Calendar Picks Back Up
Programming resumes with the Storybook Stroll on October 3, 2026, part of a recurring series aimed at younger kids, per the Gardens' 2026 calendar. Organizers have said additional cultural events, concerts, and seasonal programs continue through the fall, according to Long Island Press's coverage of the 2026 season, including the return of the Poetica Musica concert series, which stages chamber performances inside the historic Westbury House, as the same report notes. Past fall seasons at the Gardens have also included Halloween-adjacent programming like pumpkin decorating and a trick-or-treat walk that welcomes leashed dogs, staged around fixtures like the Barn at Orchard Hill and the Thatched Cottage near Westbury House, per the venue's own seasonal programming page.
Once that October programming kicks in, the crowd pattern flips back. Strollers, costumes, and a full parking lot return. The quiet stretch closes.
The Practical Version
If you live nearby and only take one thing from this, it's a rough four-week map. This week through August 22, catch the LEGO sculptures and, if you want it, the Celtic Festival on the same visit. Through September 7, it's your last chance at Nature Connects at all. From September 8 through the start of October, the Gardens are open at the same hours, for the same price, with none of the summer's foot traffic and the season's best color starting to show. After that, the fall calendar takes back over.
Most visitors treat "fall at the Gardens" as one trip. The calendar actually hands you three distinct ones, back to back, and the middle one is the least crowded and the easiest to enjoy at your own pace.
Knowing a neighborhood well enough to spot patterns like this, the difference between a packed Saturday and a quiet Tuesday morning at the same address, is the kind of local read that matters beyond a weekend outing. If you or someone you know is thinking about a move in or around Old Westbury and wants that same level of attention paid to a home search, Melanie Kalmaer and the team at Bona Fide Fine Homes & Estates are worth a conversation.
