Le Chataignier

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Client: Withheld at Client’s Request  

This award-winning landscape borrows the colors, textures and agricultural character of the south of France and translates their luminescence to the American Southwest, balancing aesthetics with the environmental demands of the site’s arid climate. The design reshaped the land into sweeping agricultural terraces seeded with soft green native grasses. Ancient Spanish irrigation channels, or acequias, were rebuilt with traditional river stones and bordered with masses of red-orange tiger lilies and lilacs, leading visitors to large, lush flower and vegetable gardens. Provençal-inspired terraces of lavender and grape vines flank a greenhouse graced with pea-vine-covered wooden trellises, raised stone beds, covered cold frames and a small wishing well where plants are soaked before being transplanted into the main gardens.  A flagstone terrace on the sunny south side features a shallow fountain anchored by a Barbara Hepworth sculpture.