Brookgreen cottage

Southern Living, Sep 2000 by Belden, Derick

This home instills confidence; most of the Furniture was found at stores in Charleston and Pawleys Island. "Selecting our furnishings from what we found in retail shops;' she says, "shows that you don't need to special order for a great look."

The interiors of the house are refreshing and uncluttered. From the moldings to window treatments, Brookgreen Cottage is an exercise in restraint. Black-and-white photographs of Brookgreen Gardens by Sylvia Martin, a Senior Photographer at Southern Living; hang on the second-floor landing. "In this part of the country, people pass down furnishings to their children or build something that suits their needs. We wanted to reflect those values in this house by mixing old and new pieces," Faye says. Additionally, the Drop-Leaf Table in the living room was created especially for this house as a new Southern Living Project that you can build yourself. To order step-bystep instructions, send a self addressed, stamped (with two first-class, letter-rate stamps), business-size envelope to DropLeaf Table Project, Southern Living Projects, P.O. Box 523, Birmingham, AL 35201. Please enclose a check for $4 payable to Southern Living Projects. Allow four to six weeks for delivery.

GARDEN SPACES

The use of sculpture, pierced brick walls, and architectural elements ties the cottage's garden back to the heritage of Brookgreen. "The garden design needed to be simple," Ryan says, "because it relates not just to the house, but also to the surrounding unaltered landscape."

In the back, the screened porch links home to garden. Once outside, visitors stand in an ordered room with a terrace. Perimeter paths springing from it lead around the walled area. Two gates at the back open into a working garden bordered by the garage, allowing transition from the aesthetic to the functional.

"Thinking of landscape architecture in terms of lifestyle is a whole new take for me," Steve says. "Ryan does with horticulture and plant materials what I like to do with my houses." Ryan and Brookgreen's curator of gardens, Bobby Mottern, combined easily maintained plants, moving water, and benches to provide a wonderful setting and create a style that goes hand in hand with the house. "What's on the outside is equally important as what's on the inside," Ryan says. "The garden needs to be proportional to the home and sized to fit your lifestyle. This keeps the relationship between home and garden strong."

A shallow basin and bronze fountain set on axis with the house's central hall and opposite the rear terrace add a touch of motion. The fountain, created in 1940 by Louis P Jonas; is part of Brookgreen's sculpture collection. Two benches underneath small arbors offer nice places to enjoy the garden.

Even in the working garden outside the walls, herbs and vegetables are juxtaposed with decorative plants, demonstrating that functional can also be aesthetically pleasing. Strawberries underplant crepe myrtles, and citrus trees in whiskey barrels act as centerpieces for boxes of seasonal vegetables such as butterbeans and lettuce.