Cypress House

The owners of Cypress House had spent two years in Florence before commissioning the garden. Their brief was a love letter to the gardens of the Italian countryside — formality without austerity, evergreens without hedges, and the particular silver-green that olive leaves carry in winter light.

We laid out the garden on three terraces, each falling exactly 32 inches from the one above, with limestone steps cut to a 6.5” rise that registers as comfortable underfoot. The principal axis runs 180 feet from the loggia to a hand-cut limestone fountain, sourced from a quarry outside Bloomington, Indiana.

Twelve olive trees were shipped from a grower in central California and wintered over their first season under fleece. They are now established and looking older every year. Around them, lavender, rosemary, and a low ground-cover of creeping thyme give the garden the scent of southern Europe, even in November.