Southlands was once described as "one of the loveliest places on the colourful island of Bermuda".

The woodland estate had "an air of ease and gracious living" and featured in American society magazine 'Country Life'.

In the January 1936 edition, writer Marni Davis Wood depicts a charming era of days gone by, accompanied by the colourful sketches of Harrie Wood.

Ms Wood writes: "The driveway to Southlands, on the south shore of Warwick, is so typically Bermudian that it could hardly be any other place in the world.

"It is moreover, exactly what the approach to one's house should be — a promise of charming things to come. From the moment that you turn in the great stone gates, you are in a tunnel of shade cast by cedars and the green bay trees on the hillside.

"At the top of the ridge the drive goes through a huge cut in the limestone, between great walls, green with ferns and mosses, and festooned with swags of the Heavenly-blue morning glories that grow wild and rampant in Bermuda. It goes over the hill and winds down through a perfect carpet of freesias to the house, so amazingly white through the dark of the enormous overhanging cedars."

Dr. J. Douglas Morgan's father James, having bought the estate 25 years previously in 1911, apparently once overheard himself being described as "some Canadian with more money than sense", as Southlands was considered a "bedraggled old place".

But Ms Wood praises the late Mr. Morgan's imaginative vision and transformation of the estate, saying "every native plant or shrub has been beautifully used". She describes the "beautiful arrangements of the sub-tropical plants" in the quarry gardens, and is delighted at the fresh water interconnecting pools.

"In one of the pools there are water hyacinths, umbrella plants, and papyrus from the Nile growing luxuriantly, quite at home in the shade of an overhanging acacia tree laden with yellow flowers. In another, little gold and silver fish dart about among the waterlilies, and maidenhair fern grow to giant size along the edge," she writes.

Describing the "spacious and inviting country house" she says "all the Bermudian traditions have been maintained, the little butteries, the many white roofs, shuttered windows, a long one-story house rambling on and on.

"From the front terrace, bordered with geraniums, begonias, and red roses, where peacocks strut in vain rivalry with the colors of Bermuda waters, the view is perfectly superb — across rolling meadows where, most surprisingly, cows graze quietly, to a shining white beach and the ocean.

'In the summer, when the prevailing wind is from the south, the beach is ideal for long swimming parties and the superior picnics that are an integral part of Bermuda life.

"In what Bermudians are pleased to call winter the hill behind the house protects it from the winds that so often whip the north shore, and the high sides of the quarries shelter the gardens so that the most delicate things grow with amazing fecundity at Southlands."

Ms Wood says: "From the whippet and the wire-haired fox terrier who greet you at the terrace of the main house, and the monkey with his white bantam playmates, the peaceful cows, the many, many gardens, and the long rambling house, the little farmer's cottage tucked away behind one of the quarries, to the larger cottage The Periwinkle, with its garden stretching out to the gate like a friendly hand, the entire estate has an air of ease and gracious living which reflects a sensitive guiding hand."