June 1-15, 2008

FEATURES

IN CRAIG SOCIA'S LUSH GARDEN EXPECT ANYTHING BUT THE PREDICTABLE

Fashioned from a little over one snarly tangled acre that once was used as a dump, Craig Socia's own garden today is also the heartbeat and headquarters of his inspiration for 40-odd fabulous Hamptons gardens stamped with his very special calling card.

His own garden in East Hampton, nurtured for almost 10 years, is where his singular design mind made the leap from advertising to the landscape. The head of Craig James Socia Garden Design, Socia is adept at creating amazing outdoor environments by transforming nature, utilizing color, texture and depth with plantings both indigenous and exotic, signature twig-style constructions and custom stonework.

Before embarking on this art form, Socia was the editorial art director for Business Week and later advertising designer for Ralph Lauren. The garden he formed for himself is an amalgam of all his best ideas, flourishes, inspirations, trials and often the happy product of a client's wishes gone wrong. What his patrons cannot imagine, he brilliantly can, and so his own garden is often the beneficiary of their impatience or short-sightedness.

The hornbeam rondel that is the dream centerpiece of the newest part of his garden was a client's worst nightmare. Socia had told the client, "that brown-top is just die-back—these trees will flourish." The client responded "Off with their heads!" So off they went, directly to the stretch of land in East Hampton where he has created his own slice of heaven. Pulling up to the garden for the first time, with its signature gate, one senses an air of sophistication.

He began in this neighborhood with one little house on a small piece of land, expanded next door, and made his third addition into an exquisite French manor house (HC&G, September 2008) surrounded by a garden that is anything but what one might expect. The earliest garden (HC&G, June 15, 2003) was graced with a pair of topiary deer that today have grown large into huggable dog-like figures.