Explore This Greenwich, Connecticut Garden by Kathryn Herman

A grand, French-style home sat peacefully enough overlooking Greenwich Harbor—until landscape designer Kathryn Herman pulled the two-acre grounds into an enchanting exchange with the house and water. “We created a garden that was both French and American,” explains Herman, who built a series of outdoor rooms along the rear and sides of the house with all the signature Franco elements like tuteurs, hornbeam hedges, and rows of linden trees.

kathryn herman design greenwich garden linden trees

Rows of linden trees define formal, French-style garden rooms flanking the home.

NEIL LANDINO

“That formality is a direct response to the house,” says the landscape designer. She then broadened the view to the water with a newly leveled 10,200-square-foot back lawn that “gives the house a plinth to sit on, a place for children to play, and an open expanse for entertaining,” she says.

“There’s a beautiful balance of wild and tamed, formal and informal. I love how it steps down into a natural meadow toward the sea. It falls into harmony with the great, changing expanse of the water.” —Peter Lyden, president of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art (ICAA).

Moving away from the house and lawn, Herman contrasted the upper garden’s formality with a loose and blousy meadow reflective of the Connecticut setting. “There’s a wildness to it that’s unexpected and terribly romantic,” Herman says. The wildflower fields ring the rear of the property where the grounds slope, softening the grade change and adding a dynamism to the grounds.

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kathryn herman design greenwich garden dining room

Terraced limestone steps cut through the sloping meadow to a shaded dining area.

NEIL LANDINO

kathryn herman design greenwich garden waters edge

A screen of water-tolerantpitch pines provides privacy at the water’s edge.

Neil Landino

“Lawns are static, but the meadow is ever-changing,” she notes. A freshly mowed walking path eases through the field designed for Saturday strolls, while terraced steps deliver guests to the tranquil pool terrace. Perfectly pollarded London planetrees sprout from a gravel patio to shade the dining area “like you see at the Jardin des Tuileries,” says Herman. An elegant Ilex crenata Green Lustre hedge and White Carpet roses border the original pool from the 1960s that rests next to the harbor. “You really have the best of both worlds here, formal and informal.”