Decorating the Garden

Only the northwest corner of Connecticut would you be lucky enough to find a garden so beautifully preserved. The lawn rolls away from the big white house with an elegant home design to the top of the retaining wall where broad grass steps edged with granite descend between two stone lions to a level rectangle with deep borders at either side. Across the reflecting pool and arbor between gnarled apple trees open up the hemlock hedge and offers a glimpse of woodland. Seen from the cool screened porch on summer afternoon, it all seems as inevitable as the birdsong echoing in the 250-year-old-maples, the house and garden perfect piece of New England life from a distant, more gracious age.

In, fact, when New York decorator Bunny Williams and her husband, Randy, bought the property eleven years ago, wallpaper and plaster were falling in the stately federal house and the maples towered over waist-high grass and brush. There may have been a garden here once-old photographs hint at it-but all the remained was the level ground with leggy lilacs at either end. For William the first step in making a garden was defining the space and combine them with a little home improvement. So the rolling lawn was cut off sharply with new steps and a retaining wall built by artist Christopher Hewat. Tall panels of gray treillage were built to back the borders. “Borders need a Backdrop,” explains William, “otherwise you don’t know where to look. And the back creates a place for surprise, “in this case shady hosts-lined walks behind the fences. “There were some nondescript shrubs, but we needed something stronger with no flowers. “Once the outline was established, there were adjustments to be made. “The space is really very big, but I wanted a feeling of intimacy.