New Canaan homeowner Claire Salvatore and Greenwich-based landscape designer Martha Baker had several rooms to furnish, and they worked together choosing such decorative elements as tall native grasses for walls, doorways made of arched bamboo and beech limbs, floors inlaid with cross sections of tree trunks, lush lawn as hedge-wall-to-hedge-wall carpeting, and boulders for chairs. Plantings of purple alliums and power-washed tree root systems were positioned as items of sculpture, while beds of flowers serve as artworks whose colors and shapes change throughout the seasons.
When Salvatore and her husband purchased the property some 15 years ago, they commissioned Baker to devise a master plan for the grounds, totaling eight acres. “They followed what I drew up to the letter, or, rather to the planting,” says Baker. “They wanted to add variety to the landscape around the house, so I imagined a series of rooms wrapping the house.” Over the years, the couple added to their property by purchasing the house and land next door, in part to incorporate a storybook-like cottage where Claire’s mother could live.
Architect Louise Brooks designed the pool and matching cabanas, which are linked with a pergola thick with wisteria.
Many of the outdoor spaces are equipped with a table and chairs for al fresco dining
At this property, a series of outdoor rooms designed by Martha Baker includes a sunken formal garden walled in with a privet hedge.
Local stone and rustic fencing stand out as decorative details.
A rustic arbor leads the way into the kitchen garden.
The kitchen garden is host to several raised beds, filled with flowers, vegetables and herbs.
Chives arrive in the kitchen garden, announced by their purple flowers.
A secretive garden, furnished with boulders and ringed by bamboo trees, is one of the property’s more contemplative spaces.
Sum and Substance hosta plants grow as ground cover.
A long woodland path was carved through the landscape to link the main house to a cottage.
Natural elements, such as upturned tree roots, are used as sculptural elements.
Charlie Baker of Baker Structures created archways of sawn trees and bark.
Just as gardens change, so, too, do families. “My four children were young at the time the garden was conceived,” explains Salvatore, “and now that we’re approaching being empty nesters, we’ve changed up some of the garden rooms and use them differently.” And yet, the original function of these outdoor rooms, of sorts, remain the same as they have fully matured.
It makes sense that Martha Baker’s long career as a garden designer began with her work as a noted fashion editor and writer, notably for The New York Times and other major magazines. She possesses a natural talent for how to imbue natural landscapes with color and shape, as well as perfuming scents and accessories, such as bountiful harvests of apples, grapes and vegetables.
Both homeowner and designer cite a secretive garden as among the property’s most enchanting spaces. There, an archway of bamboo beckons into a contemplative area strewn with boulders excavated when the foundation was being laid for the six- bedroom Colonial-style house. It was an outdoor room in which her children would regularly play. “The space was a little adventure playground for the children then,” says Baker, “but it has since changed purpose and become more of a meditative space.” A maze-like configuration of stones set into the ground—along with plantings of ferns and boxwood—have resulted in a room that feels hushed and wholly self-contained.
Although the Salvatores use all of the outdoor spaces configured by Baker, the couple have a particular penchant for an entertaining space close to a century-old barn and water tower that came with the property. Adirondack chairs are grouped around a firepit, the whole of which is enveloped by walls of grasses that are allowed to grow tall. “When you’re in this space and the grasses are at their highest,” says Salvatore, “you can’t see out. It’s a true little outdoor room. We always hold a Christmas party there, with the fire going, and throughout the year, we linger there on mild nights.”
When Claire’s mother moved into an existing cottage, Baker decided to fashion a 300-foot-long woodland path linking that structure to the main house. She had the novel idea to accent the path with cross sections, or discs, of tree trunks. Baker’s son, Charlie Baker, who founded the Brooklyn–based Baker Structures, built pergolas and fencing along the route, including two rustic archways made of cut tree trunks that reference the kind of ancient forms one sees at Stonehenge.
in with a privet hedge. Photography by Neil Landino, Jr.
A formal sunken garden, furnished with four strategically placed benches, is yet another room in which the homeowners and their guests frequently gather. The term flaneur, which usually references a contemplative amble through an urban neighborhood, applies to the kind of exploration one undertakes on this property. One can course a pool and walk beneath wisteria-thick pergolas, sample from the kitchen garden, amble along allées of apple trees, and admire a regimented grove of pollarded lindens.
“I feel that the garden has aged beautifully as it has matured,” says Baker. “Most of it looks like it’s been there forever, which is the goal you want to have when designing a garden.”
