FEATURES

JACK DELASHMET WORKS HIS MAGIC ON A THORNY PLOT

It is one thing to make a garden look good in May or June, it is quite another to make one look good every single day of the year. Actually, it's a priceless talent that takes skill, guile and the rare ability to see the big picture. No mean feat for landscape designer Jack deLashmet, who was commissioned by Herb and Karen Friedman, an erudite and tasteful couple, to build a castle in the sky upon not just any few acres—but a thorny, brambly impenetrable serious slope mostly surrounded by the very thing they most disdained—"spec" housing arranged on an asphalt cul-de-sac. The only thing this dreadful tract of land had going for it was salamanders—because of them, Suffolk County had preserved some land to the north—thus creating endless woodland from some perspectives.

DeLashmet's extraordinary transformation started with the Friedmans' ability to believe in his vision and think big. How else do you convince your clients to position their house so the expected front becomes the back? Forget Georgian and embrace charming Italianate country house? Build massive stone retaining walls with only a promise that they will disappear eventually? Or create a true spring woodland (the kind you see in venerable old Brit gardens) by planting 20,000 Virginia bluebells? These happen to be underplanted with as many ferns (half cinnamon and half royal) and are accompanied by another 100,000 bare root plants and bulbs.

DeLashmet was not only able to encourage the Friedmans to part with considerable dollars for grand tangible ideas, he was also persuasive enough to convince them of the wisdom of going the extra nine yards and blanketing the place with good dirt. He insisted on it. It is deLashmet's philosophy that money is one of the essential three M's of this project, the other being manpower and manure. I have to add a fourth M—magic. Along with talent and materials, a big dose of illusion is necessary to pull off the feat of taming woods and rezoning wilderness and doing it with every nod to the environment using, principally, indigenous plants (not one of which is homely or boring)—just plain genius.

Because of his Herculean knowledge of gardening in the Hamptons, one might not expect deLashmet to be a Southern gentleman. It is the way he translates his knowledge of our land, our climate, our tolerances into the something special—that is the quality missed in most gardens. Call it a beloved kindness, an observance of detail, or a particular manner that corresponds to breeding that makes his Hamptons approach different from that of everyone else.

His subtle way with color is one of the climaxes of the garden as it moves from season to season. Just as he himself dresses, with one restrained pale orange and blue plaid shirt over another subtle plaid in a slightly lighter hue of blue—neck swathed in foulard—all under a discreet tweed jacket of ecru and brown, so the garden also moves in delicate, colored brush strokes.

The positioning of the driveway (a meager 320 feet that feels like miles) is a masterstroke. Positioned in a reverse s-curve, it makes the land seem endless and gives the impression that you have suddenly left that other world and entered a park. One passes through a woodland that is punctuated with the most lyrical examples of the former woodsy sprawl, pruned to their best advantage. The pastoral-seeming drive is ringed with viburnum (Plicatum var tomentosum 'Mariesii'), red cedar, shad, hornbeam and holly. A great mix of evergreens, conifers and understory trees impart a distinctly European feel and create a cloak-like canopy that envelopes visitors who traverse the wide-flung gravel courtyard. It is downright manor-house and so non-driveway.

For much of the garden's living space, deLashmet collaborated with Geoffrey Nimmer of East End Garden Design (recent LongHouse Blue Medal winner for his great architectural container composition of grass, moss and reeds) to give sizzle to the cutting and viewing gardens that accentuate the pool, patios and terrific trellised outdoor dining pergola.

DeLashmet's extraordinary imagination and plantsman prowess has given the Friedmans every single thing that their accomplished minds and willing hearts desired—the "integrated whole" that they were searching for. No supernumerical strokes are at play here. Every one of the trillion decisions had a purpose—whether a sweeping gesture like rearranging the topography, or minutiae like gravel size. And which sort of trillium or lily will be most at home. He is able to manage colleagues, environmentalists, stone movers, gardeners, arborists, craftsman and engineers, to name some—not to mention the neighbors (who have actually benefited greatly from his skill at blurring the boundaries of the property lines with native hibiscus, rhododendron and even sumac)—and ultimately, the client. This is as close to perfect as a marriage gets. These pairings of land and time, ability and desire—they restore one's faith in the ideal.