A LANDSCAPE TO MAKE HER CRY

"The Renaissance had a word for it: sprezzatura, the quality of apparent ease that the perfect courtier brought to all his high-wire acts: swordplay, flute-playing, poetry-writing, singing, love-making." Willard Spiegelman

SHE called me to design her landscape. Her sprezzatura lost momentarily with a previous designer.
At the frontdoor natural light and her books. SHE, "When the Barefoot Contessa sashays into her garden I swoon."

SHE called me to fix what others created.

SHE & my contractors, don't you love the body language? In her hand is my plan, fixing those walls.

String & flags to make the plan come alive. Below, SHE has a potager to sashay into.

Yellow string, above, being measured for the stone to create raised beds for her potager. Paths of small gray granite gravel to match her bluestone terrace.

SHE had boots ready to walk in the mud. SHE recently rescued Sam, below. Can you tell he already has her heart?

Talk went to wine & scotch.

SHE was dubious about the Giardino Segretto garden room. Until I said, It's where you'll drink scotch & wine with your girlfriends. Sold!

Colors, furnishings, books, lighting. SHE chose them all.

One of my landscape design secrets is to see which cookbooks are in the house. Why? They are a window into the soul. How you eat is how you live, and how you garden.

Interesting. SHE has 2 glass/metal tables. I copied the idea for enclosing a portion of her bluestone terrace. Using a mid-century modern greenhouse glass roof & folding door idea used at Callaway Gardens, Sibley Center.

An entire closet is devoted to dishes.

When I made the 2nd appointment, to draw en plein aire, I requested lunch.

Another landscape design secret, talking life. Knowing there will be a defining thought.

SHE went back to the Barefoot Contessa. "Every recipe of hers is foolproof. No matter how I forget to do something, don't quite beat the egg whites correctly, anything. Nothing I've cooked of hers, through the years, has failed."

Can there possibly be a better description for the type of landscape SHE wants? SHE's not afraid of wit. SHE's never cute.

Beautiful, foolproof, light & shadows, traditional spiced with mid-century modern, flavored with the Barefoot Contessa & the great works of literature. That was the landscape I had to design.

LANDSCAPES BEGIN IN THE IMAGINATION

A plain chair with a pop of fringe tells me more about designing her landscape.

SHE's not afraid of sunlight on her floor & furnishings. Telling me SHE's sensual.

And another landscape design secret, the guest bathroom.

SHE has drama with color, textiles, art from her travels and junking. A directive for any landscape.

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SHE's ready for her landscape to be DONE. Troubles with her 1st designer weigh heavily in time & money.

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Wish I could have an 18-wheeler show up today with everything in my plan. I know I've created a landscape to make her cry.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara