Page 26 - cn-The Art of Style Status STUDIO pres April 2024

Overbecks affords spectacular views over the Salcombe Estuary. The home is set in a 7acre garden filled
with exotic and tender plants. palms, salvias and olive trees growing alongside bananas, agaves and acacias.
The garden is arranged in terraces with each affording its own individual view and vantage point of the
surrounding coast and garden.

In 1892 a small house was built. It was in 1901 that the garden surrounding the house took shape when
Edric Hopkins , a keen gardener, purchased “Sharpitor,” {as it was named- referring to Sharp Tor a nearby
craggy outcrop}. The garden is on a steep slope so it took great effort to create level terraces, this was
achieved by introducing retaining walls to form the basis of the garden. The house was purchased by
Captain George Medlicott Vereker, an equally passionate gardener. The Vereker’s built a larger house on
the same site and consequently the garden was further developed. In 1928 the chemist Otto Overbeck
bought “Sharpitor”for his retirement and lived there until his death in 1937. He had arranged for the estate
to be left to the National Trust, on the proviso that the house and gardens would be renamed “Overbecks”.
Otto Overbeck was one of a long succession of gardening enthusiasts that had refined and added to the
collection of plants and trees. The palms act as a visual linkage between various sections of the garden.
Many of the chusan palms were planted by Otto Overbeck in the 1920’s and there are in all eight different
varieties many being self- seeding.

Overbecks, Devon. NT