The New Southern Accents

As mentioned in The Devoted Classicist February 21, 2011, post, there will be special editons of Southern Accents magazine although there are no longer regular monthly issues.  The current issue on newsstands is "The Best of Southern Gardens".

The garden of a John Tackett Design project in Highland Park, Dallas was featured on the cover and in an article in one of the last monthly issues of the magazine.  But I had nothing to do with the garden and essentially anything associated with my work was omitted in the photographs.  Only the service entrance to the Guesthouse/Poolhouse can barely be seen on the cover.  But recently word came that the new edition of the magazine would again feature the project in an article titled "A Classical Italian Garden in Dallas".

View of rear garden to southeast.  Design by Paul Fields.

So I was hopeful at this second chance at publication, but it was not to be.  Although, again, no evidence of my work is shown, the garden is presented here to be a reference in more posts in the future.  There had been a previous scheme for the landscaping that had been realized by another garden designer, so my work on the project had long been finished by the time the owners brought in Paul Fields of Lambert Landscape Company whose efforts are shown here.

The plan of the rear garden designed by Paul Fields.

The Devoted Classicist is a big proponent of Garden Rooms, delineated areas of planting that can be considered on their own in terms of design.  But 3-dimensionality has to be considered, with heights as important as the footprint.  And the relationship of the house to the landscape must be considered;  what one sees from the interior and what happens as one enters or exists the house should be very important aspects of the garden design.  In this situation, the garden was treeless with the rear of the house facing south with an alley beyond and a side street immediately bordering the eastern boundary.  The long, humid summers in Dallas are brutal, so that was surely the incentive for providing shade for the walkways.  But the central allee of crepe myrtles with a tall central parterre-like bed of boxwood and pots of soon-to-be-trees of vitex divides the expanse of lawn into two parts, unnecessarily, in addition to slicing the rear facade of the house in half.

The homeowner with her granddaughters on the west lawn.

Containers set into beds are a traditional way to easily add seasonal color.  A view of the corner of the limestone clad house at the Family Room is almost seen on the right in the photo above.

The fountain designed by Rick Robertson.

A raised curb around the pool helps prevent accidental spills and fall-ins.  It prevents sitting on the edge, however.  Submerged platforms allow a place for a cool soak, however, aided by shade from a screen of magnolias

The Potager, or Kitchen Garden, by Paul Fields.

The corner of the garden that is the fartherest from the kitchen is designated as a potager.  No vegetables are evident in this shot, but there are some sprigs of thyme growing up between the flagstones.  It is attractive, none-the-less, and I am sure a welcome contrast to the expanse of paving of the pool terrace.

Several other private gardens are also presented, along with some well-known examples such as Hidecote Manor, Wave Hill, Dumbarton Oaks, and Great Dixter, to provide garden design inspiration.  In addition, there are segments that highlight various elements such as containers, statuary & garden ornaments, walkways & paths, pools & fountains, and outdoor rooms.  My friend Peter Cummin, the extremely talented landscape architect based in Stonington, Connecticut, is responsible for the deisgn pictured below in Tulsa.

A Tulsa garden by Peter Cummin.

The Best Southern Rooms

Although regular issues of "Southern Accents" magazine are no longer published, a special issue has been produced which they have called "The Best Southern Rooms, 135 of Our Most Beautiful Spaces".  One of my projects which was published in the magazine a few years ago partially reappears with the four rooms that follow.  Sadly, two of my favorite rooms of the house that were shown previously did not make the editorial cut this time;  I will include them in a future post, however.

I was planning an addition for the clients, recently married and living in the lady's charming 1920s house on a prominent corner lot on the boulevard of Belle Meade, the self-governing community to the west of Nashville.  A former owner had sold the rear garden, however, and set-back building lines for the corner severely restricted any addition.  When the house just two doors from the lady's close relative came on the market, it was decided to move instead of adding to the existing house as the new house had the required rooms for the growing young family and just needed some aesthetic improvements.  The new house was not new in age, but was a traditional, 1950s house, in the Leave-It-To-Beaver style with several extensive remodelings and additions over the years.  While it occupied a very large, desirable lot on a road of small estates, we were all suprised when the real estate transaction made the front page of the local newspaper;  the sale broke the county record for residential real estate.  (The area is full of houses much more lavish and attractive, but they were custom built and/or had not changed hands in years).

In the two story Entrance Stair Hall, I changed the staircase, but that is one of the spaces not included in this edition.  The Living Room, which is to the right of the entrance, stayed much as it was architecturally.  The Louis XV style chimneypiece was exisitng but in a very peculiar multi-colored marble which was faux painted to resemble limestone.  I designed a pair of large, comfortable upholstered chairs to flank the fireplace, but they are replaced in this photo with the Marshall Field models that were flanking the sofa opposite.  Hector Samada from my office hung the owner's collection of drawings.  The cabinet and table flanking the fireplace are Swedish antiques, just part of the owners' large collection.  In tandem with this project, I also helped them with their home in the equestrian community of Wellington, Florida, and we travelled to Stockholm to search for additional furnishings for the two projects.

In the adjacent Dining Room, a Swedish chandelier hangs over the table surrounded by Russian neoclassical armchairs.  The opposite wall is actually more interesting as it is covered with a huge framed drawing, a "cartoon" of a Rubens tapestry.  My only architectural improvement to this room was to add an actual door, double-acting, to the trimmed opening to the adjacent serving pantry, blocking the view to that space, the Breakfast Room and the Kitchen beyond that had previously been just one long shot through the house.

My architectural improvement to the Family Room was to decrease the width of this opening to an adjacent Sitting Room;  it was formerly 16 feet wide.  The enormous steel beam in the load-bearing structual wall had to remain, so the opening height remains as existing or I would have preferred to raise it.  Josie McCarthy collaborated on this project and chose the wonderful printed linen that covers the walls (and matching curtains, not seen), as well as many other invaluable contributions.  Again, Hector Samada hung the framed prints, all birds of prey, a collection numbering almost 30 that covered the Entrance Hall walls and up the stairs of the previous house.  I designed most of the new custom made lampshades, including these for the great pair of red tole lamps from Colefax and Fowler, found on a shopping trip to London, that were specially re-wired to also include an uplight to bounce illumination off the high ceiling.

In the Sleeping Room of the Master Suite, I laid out the pattern of the Chelsea Editions embroidered linen fabric to utilize the scalloped border for the bed hangings of the Louis XVI style bed.  Josie and I both like to use side tables or chests rather than typical bedside tables that so often are newly made too low for a traditional bed's mattress height.

It was a fun project, especially interesting for me because of the improvements I was able to make to the architectural aesthetics of a house lacking refinement, yet held in high regard by the general public.