Page 122 - Homes amp Gardens UK February 2021

INSPIRATION
e started with the aim of
not making it too formal,’
says Portuguese-born,
WNew York-based interior
designer Alexandra Champalimaud of the elegant
but languidly winding garden belonging to the
weekend retreat she owns with her Texan financier
husband Bruce Schnitzer.
Situated in the heart of the pretty Connecticut
town of Litchfield, the 15-acre garden flows from the
back of the simple but handsome L-shaped white
clapboard house – built in 1753 for the American
politician Oliver Wolcott (a signer of the Declaration
of Independence) – and across various paved areas
that Bruce and Alexandra have created for sitting,
eating and garden-gazing. Continuing past a
swimming pool and pond, it then meanders gently
down, framed by a woodland filled with tall oak,
maple, copper beech and shagbark hickory trees, to
the Bantam River flowing at the very end. ‘It’s a
garden full of adventure,’ enthuses Alexandra.
For more than 40 years, the restoration of both the
historically-listed house and garden has been a true
labour of love for the couple – first for Bruce, after
buying the property in 1978, and then in partnership
with Alexandra after they were married 20 years
later. ‘When Bruce arrived, there were brambles and
poison ivy all the way up to the front door,’ she says.
But as he cleared it back, Bruce discovered some
gnarly lilac trees, a few ornamental shrubs, trails of
mint and rhubarb, and indentations of old flower
beds. ‘I realised there must have once been a very
good garden here,’ says Bruce.
While not setting out to replicate exactly what had
been here before, ‘we did take inspiration from what
we imagined might have been a New England
version of an English garden back then,’ he says.
This also meant remaining empathetic to its early
18th-century roots (Litchfield was founded in 1719),
when ‘this part of the world was once communal
grazing land, founded by people who were escaping
what they thought was a too formalistic environment
in England,’ Bruce explains. Even to this day,
throughout town, there are very few fences. ‘Leaving
it more natural seemed the right thing to do,’ he says.
Under Alexandra’s keen design eye – she has
designed interiors for hotels across the globe,
including Raffles Singapore, London’s Claridge’s
and The Carlyle in New York – they have flattened
sections around the house in a series of barely
perceptible terraces, paved with local stone or slabs
of granite salvaged from Yale University, which then
lead to a long double perennial border. At the end of
this, a half-moon mass of lilac frames a 19th-century
terracotta figure (a gift to one another on their 10th
wedding anniversary), which was salvaged from an
early Philadelphia skyscraper.
From early spring to autumn, the double border
provides waves of evolving colour and texture every
three of four weeks, from a chequerboard array
of White Triumphator and Queen of Night tulips
to richly hued delphiniums, phlox and peonies.
Elsewhere, clever punctuations of unexpected detail
– a large, sculptural millstone marking the original
working well, an antique chocolate tub used as a
fountain – keep the eye moving through from one
space to the next. ‘I wanted to create uplifting,
special thinking places – places to walk to and find
a bench, places to appreciate the intimacy flowers
bring,’ says Alexandra. The result is a garden that
feels romantic and layered, ‘without trying too hard,’
she says. ‘It was important nothing should jar.’ &
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