Research Garden DesignBrowse photos, get design ideas & see the hottest plants
Terry Rakolta has no trouble reeling off wrangle to line what she desired for her South Florida waterfront property , a wedge heel - shaped half - acre mostly swallow up by a Mediterranean - style Pancho Villa . “ I wanted charming , romantic , mysterious , Old World , ” she articulate . “ I just did n’t know how to get there from a magnanimous home sit on a circumstances . ”
arch trim back out of massive Cuban laurel hedges are a decorative and functional leitmotif throughout the property . Photo by : Robin Hill .
achieve this sublime vision fell to the Palm Beach - base landscape painting computer architecture firm of Sanchez & Maddux , known for their synthesis of classical European garden design element with exotic tropic plant . The full term they use to describe their signature style—“the civilized jungle”—is also the claim of a book about their work published last twelvemonth by Grayson Publishing .
Some initial landscape gardening had been done in the mid-1990s , when the house was built , but Rakolta was never entirely satisfied with it . A few years ago , she contacted principals Jorge Sanchez and Phil Maddux , her head take with images of northern Italy ’s lake dominion . The eventual result was an encompassing redo of hardscaping and planting . “ We removed all of the walkways and some of the works , ” enunciate Sanchez . “ We exit the swimming puddle and a small terrace , but that ’s about it . ”
The distinctive arched hedges hug the side of the swimming pool , render it private and a routine inscrutable . Photo by : Robin Hill .
The most difficult challenge was the urine eyeshot . The house face the Lake Worth lagoon , which is lovely , but the buildings on the diametric bank less so . “ The view could have been either beautiful or common , depending on how it was handled , ” says Sanchez . A clever workaround was needed .
Rakolta and her husband , John , who apply the dimension as a winter getaway ( they also have home in New York , Harbor Springs and Bloomfield Hills , Michigan , and are building a home plate in Aspen ) , often joined by their four children and four — before long to be five — grandchild , also wanted more privateness . “ sauceboat would ground and look in at us , ” she says , a trouble since the early day , when the newfangled menage was surrounded by a “ moonscape , ” with not a exclusive tree .
clothe in bougainvillea , a bower tops the dining loggia . The householder also likes to arrange tables on the lawn . Photo by : Robin Hill .
On a trip to Italy ’s Lake Como , Rakolta had point out hedges with arch cut out of them . She proposed a similar approach to taming the too - unresolved survey of the watercourse . “ Everyone fought me on it , saying , ‘ You paid so much for the water persuasion , why hide it ? ’ Only Jorge said , ‘ Good idea . ’ ” The sculpted hedge , comprisingFicus retusa(Cuban laurel ) formed into arches , runs about one - third the distance of the property ’s 200 - animal foot waterfront , between the lawn and a freshly built sea wall , and also shut in the swim pool on two sides . “ You get views to the water without it being present completely , while the heart tends to hop over the buildings across the way , ” read Sanchez . “ There ’s a little piece of mystery . ”
The irregularly shape spaces around the sprawling house were organized as a series of outside rooms , each with a strong fiber of its own . The most spectacular of these is delimitate by an allée of eight towering engagement thenar , which make a long view to the pee from the house ’s front entrance . “ It feels to me like a cathedral , ” sound out Rakolta , who contrive to put a foresightful harvest table in that calm space .
The dining loggia , a covered open - air patio modeled close on classic European computer architecture , overtop a lawn used for entertaining . picture by : Robin Hill .
Moving counterclockwise from there , on the more formally project waterfront side of the house , there ’s the orthogonal - shaped swimming pool “ hugged by hedges , which makes it very private , ” Sanchez tell . A sunken open - breeze dining loggia , overlooking the lawn , is “ a assemblage situation , ” used for entertaining , say Rakolta : “ I like to determine tables on the Mary Jane . ” pave with coquina , a locally quarried , pale - colored stone , and top by a bougainvillea - clad pergola , the loggia could very well be somewhere in the James Jerome Hill of Italy .
A lilliputian waterside patio with footed urns bring in still more of what Rakolta loves about Italian gardens . There ’s a modification in elevation here , say Maddux , an expert on rain forest plants who has worked with Sanchez since 1980 . “ The terrace drop from the level of the house to the sea wall . The drop is only a couple of feet , but the thaumaturgy is that it ’s a lot more than that , ” he explains . “ You look out the windows of the den and you ’re correct on the H2O , ” Rakolta say . “ It ’s very Venetian in feeling . ”
pacification lilies surround a Harlan Fisk Stone run and fountain designed by Terry Rakolta , the homeowner , in collaborationism with Jorge Sanchez , in a “ jungly ” sphere allow from a former driveway . pic by : Robin Hill .
Bougainvillea‘New River ’ climbs the walls of a brick - paved home court with a circular bulwark fountain , next to which , in space reclaimed from an outsize private road , Sanchez & Maddux created an intimate , intensively planted area , touch to as “ the jungle . ” Here the classical symmetry and careful balance of the more formal waterfront sphere give elbow room to a naturalistic way .
Closing off part of the original driveway with a cosmetic iron logic gate to create the space was a “ cam stroke of genius , ” Rakolta enunciate . Centered around a big banyan tree , with curved brick walk and plantings inspired by the rain forests of South America , this hidden garden is redolent with the seductive sweetness ofCananga odorata(ylang - ylang ) andMichelia champaca , a magnolia relation ( think Joy perfume ) . “ It ’s wonderful in the eve , ” Sanchez says . “ Usually one or the other is in bloom , and it makes the quad very romantic . ”
mirror set within fretwork arch create an illusion of great depth , making the place look more heroic than it is . photograph by : Robin Hill .
Clusters of sky - blue flower ofThunbergia grandiflorahang from above , while different varieties of palms , Heliconia(the “ rhododendron of Florida , ” Sanchez calls it , for its ubiquity ) , peppiness , orchids in pots , banana , chalice vine , and confederate jasmine , fill this part of the property with tropic scent and splendour .
Not all of the ascendant for the landscape are Italian . Sanchez counts the Generalife garden next to Spain ’s Alhambra palace ( whose origins date to the 9th hundred ) , with its “ still pools , squirts of pee , and lilliputian secret spaces , ” among his breathing in for the Rakolta property . Andalusian gardens are historically design to “ draw and quarter the heart , ” as Sanchez says , offering tantalizing glimpses from one discrete quad into the next as you move through them . So it is at the Rakoltas ' house . “ you’re able to take a short walk and find dissimilar panorama , ” Maddux order . “ You do n’t see everything all at once . ”
Bougainvillea‘New River ’ wax the walls of a brick - paved interior courtyard . Photo by : Robin Hill .
Terry Rakolta knew she was asking for a pot , but she got it . “ I ’m more than glad , ” she says . “ Until we redo the garden , I really was n’t too frantic about the house . Now I feel the beloved . ”
