“I try to create a home for everyone—particularly for the non-paying residents like animals. They bring such a richness, making everything seem more alive,” notes landscape architect Edmund Hollander of Hollander Design. “This waterfront landscape in the Hamptons combines natural ecology, architectural ecology, and human ecology into one cohesive property.” Surrounding a Southampton home designed by architect Jon F. Edelbaum, the sprawling three-acre garden was created to feel limitless. “Viewscapes are as important as the landscape. You own what you see,” says Hollander, who collaborated with Melissa Reavis, residential studio director of Hollander Design.
They configured a blousy meadow of native hibiscus grasses to blur the boundary between this property and adjacent corn fields. Look closer to the house, and pollinator-friendly native flowers spill from garden beds, softening and pushing back the shingles. “These plants love the marshy, salty air and also bring nature’s ballerinas close to the home. It’s a great dance to watch while drinking your morning coffee,” notes Hollander, who never overlooks the people in his projects. “The goal of my gardens is always complete tranquility, which is especially for the ones who spent two hours fighting traffic to get here. Now, it’s gin and tonic time,” he says.
Slabs of Jerusalem limestone hopscotch across native beach gravel on the contemporary front entry shrouded by a privet hedge and Chinese elms. “That crunchy sound deliberately triggers ‘beach house’ and ‘weekend’ to guests as they arrive,” says Hollander.
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“Echinacea, lavender, and hyssop grow wonderfully in the misty salt air and are magnets for butterflies and pollinators,” says Hollander. “You see them perform nature’s ballet in front of you.” Limelight hydrangea spill out from the opposite flower bed.
“This area really sets the mood for early evening gin and tonics. You sit and can hear the seagulls,” says Hollander. “The design is an homage to the beauty of the natural landscape. Here, the more controlled garden transitions out to the buffer meadow planted with native hibiscus grass.”
“A rimless edge pool puts the water level with the surrounding terrace, allowing it to become a mirror of the coastal sky,” says Hollander, who inserted a wooden Ipe deck within the Jerusalem limestone terrace to “make a room” for the chaise lounges.
A rooftop pollinator meadow set into Ipe decking atop the roof of the living room, dining room, and kitchen “took a lot of collaboration and engineering, but it invites butterflies and birds right up to the home,” says Hollander.
A four-square garden of horse chestnut trees, which bloom with their own white flowers in June, are each surrounded with pollinator-friendly beds and grasses.
“We took advantage of an old country lane lined with 100-year-old maples on the property and turned into the driveway,” says Hollander. “Cedar gates open and you go down this old country road. It’s an invitation to a peaceful bit of mystery.”
“A crabapple orchard underplanted with black-eyed Susan’s, daisies, and native blue stem grass rifts on the old agricultural vernacular landscape,” notes Hollander, who placed a Jerusalem limestone pathway in the middle of the orchard so people can pass through it on their way to the lawn and main house.
“Visitors see the property’s orchard and meadow as a prelude to the pasture that this garden has grown out of over the years,” says Hollander.
