WINNER: DEVORE ASSOCIATES
It’s all literally down hill from the moment you arrive at this property. But it’s that very feature, a downward progression to a series of fragrant and colorful gardens and garden rooms, manicured lawn areas and an expansive bocce court that make this garden design from Devore Associates so extraordinary and exhilarating to experience. This one-acre property has a grade that drops 55 feet from the roadway to the pond, but there is much to experience along the way down as the property continues to entice and draw visitors. Massings of white hydrangeas soon give way to a colorful cutting garden, followed by water gardens that are planted with lotus, all of which frame a swimming pool. A kitchen garden is planted on one level, fruit trees are espaliered like artworks against retaining walls, fig trees flank steps leading down the grade, and grapes grow bountifully up posts of pergolas. Vegetables, herbs and lemon trees make appearances elsewhere. At every level of this garden, built literally into a steep hill, one encounters numerous visual, audible, and scented rewards.
FINALIST: JAMES DOYLE DESIGN ASSOCIATES
Let’s go ahead and express a geographical bias: Any view of Long Island Sound from the lower Fairfield County shoreline is among the best vistas on earth. That now stated, this new house is positioned to embrace full-on views of the water, with more than 250 feet of direct waterfront. Permitting rules proved to be one of the best design directives, for they stipulated that native plantings be incorporated at the water’s edge; maritime shrubbery and native meadows provide the perfect buffer. Tall hedges of hornbeam greet visitors at the front of the house, while oak trees and strips of meadow draw people into the central courtyard. Parterres of boxwoods, and beds of gravel interspersed with seasonal perennials, serve as borders along the rear terraces. Views of the Sound remain unimpeded when swimming in the vanishing- edge pool and spa, though a bountiful herbaceous border provides privacy and color. Eventually, a lawn gives way to a stone staircase that leads to a bocce court and waterside cabana. Meanwhile, those views of the water remain inspiring at every level and place in the garden.
FINALIST: RENÉE BYERS LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT
While substantial Shingle-style houses of the late 19th century can be among the greatest of residential architectural creations, they also age, sometimes to the point of decrepitude. It took the vision of landscape architect Renée Byers to see what her own Litchfield County property could become for her family once she purchased the weathered house and land. She re-created, renewed and even reinvented her 11-acre spread of land. Her design goal was to make the grounds into an inviting, low-maintenance retreat for friends and family to gather. Upon looking at old photos of the house, she reconstructed a porch and garden walls, adding steps and paving but using reclaimed fieldstone, granite and bluestone for greater effect. She reclad the pool and restored its cabana, and she remedied serious drainage issues by regrading the rear hillside. Native ferns, perennials and shrubs now “decorate” the undulating property. Outdoor rooms are as well furnished as those inside the expansive home—albeit with novel natural elements and features. New specimen trees and towering maples, pruned like topiary, have been sited to frame the bucolic views that vault into the distance.