A garden that’s a year-round escape, even in summer
DESIGN CREATES OUTDOOR ROOMS THAT DELIGHT THE SENSES
Enjoying Houston outdoors yearround — yes, really — does not require a swimming pool.
In fact, a huge pool was the first thing Elizabeth and John King eliminated after they bought their 4,000-square-foot home in a serene corner of the Memorial Villages in 2015.
“We’re probably a little bit unusual,” says Elizabeth, a partner at Deloitte. “A lot of people want big houses. We wanted a big garden. We wanted to feel like we are not in Houston.”
The Kings opted to renovate their yard before their home’s interior partly because that work would be less disruptive while their daughter, Sarah, was in high school. The huge, curvy pool seemed all-consuming and out of balance with the ranch-style home, which was built in the 1950s. “It was beautifully done, but it never felt like you were at the same house when you were outside,” Elizabeth says.
“We have true rooms in our home; it’s not one big, open space,” John explains. “We were trying to accomplish that outside.”
Mark Scioneaux and Marc Tellepsen, the late founders of Tellepsen landscaping, collaborated with architect Virginia Kelsey and interior designer Cathy Chapman to create a genius solution: a series of comfortably scaled outdoor rooms whose rectilinear footprint echoes the midcentury home’s lines, scale and spirit — a bit vintage Frenchmeets-Cape Cod, neither rigidly minimal nor overly ornate. “We had the right team, and they worked well together,” Elizabeth says.
The home’s kitchen and diningroom doors lead onto a porch and out toward an L-shaped slate path that traverses a sitting area and a fountain room before turning right into an open-air dining area and the grand focal point, a comfortably furnished pavilion with a fireplace and a TV. Between that structure and the home’s west wing lies a fine carpet of Pallisades zoysia grass where the Kings play lawn games and practice their putting.
“Not all zoysias are created
equal. Tellepsen put a lot of thought into that,” Elizabeth says. “It’s done better than anyone imagined. A crazy thing about doing gardens — there’s so many variables that you just don’t know how things are going to play together. There’s not as much risk with an interior.”
She wanted to save and move some existing roses whose blooms she brings inside, but Tellepsen added to them and introduced many other options. “Part of it was, what’s blooming at different times of the year? What is more of a structure/ framing-type plant versus something that shows a month or two and goes quiet?” she says. “We wanted it to have that living, breathing sense about it throughout the year.”
She loves the light scent of the ‘Cinco de Mayo’ rose, one of Scioneaux’s favorites, in the sitting area, and the fragrant hips of the ‘New Dawn’ that climbs gracefully up the masterbedroom chimney. In early summer, tall blue balls of agapanthas are the showstoppers and magnolia blossoms add to the heady aura; the chartreuse leaves of ‘Lemon-Lime’ nandina add a bright punch nearly yearround.
This home was always meant to commune with the outdoors. The architecture incorporates three intimate, inset gardens, each with a different feel and a fountain. The gurgle of water was important, both for the pleasure of the garden’s owners and the birds who are attracted to the sound, Elizabeth says. “That’s the one thing we wanted to keep from the pool; it had a really nice fountain.”
From their master bedroom and bath, the Kings observe the curling, peeling bark of a huge river birch and enjoy views of a faux sugar pot, which looks like a relic from a Louisiana plantation, surrounded by giant ligularia and other shade plants. A guest room and the utility room (who wouldn’t want to linger there with the laundry?) overlook a secret garden room with a tiered fountain, a wall of jasmine and an arbor draped with a luscious Dutchman’s pipe vine.
Even in summer, Elizabeth sheds her pumps for her Birkenstocks within 10 minutes of returning from work each day to experience the sublime. “This is a way for me to relax when I get home,” she says. “It’s a big treat.”
John, a BMC Software vice president, loves the garden just as much. The couple often sip their morning coffee or evening cocktails in the sitting area, looking across that lawn. “It’s amazing how many stars we can see, even with Houston’s light pollution,” Elizabeth says. “We’ll perch here with a glass of wine, and John has an iPad app that we can use to figure out what stars we’re seeing.”
The back of the property abuts Soldier’s Creek. So, across the line of azaleas, fig ivy and magnolias that green up the long back fence, a wilder, tree-filled landscape adds privacy to the Kings’ retreat. Hawks hunt back there, and water fowl come through. On their tame side, the Kings planted other significant trees, including a beautiful red oak and river birches that add the gentle rustle of leaves and fall color.
The front entry and landscaping look simpler but were as carefully considered as the back garden, and not easy to pull off. Knot gardens with winterblooming camelias and Chinese fringe trees that flower exquisitely in the spring follow the horizontal line of the home’s nearly windowless front. Weathered urns of bromeliads and ferns, faux bois benches and gas lanterns create quiet harmony at the glossy, black contemporary front door.
“We have a wonderful crew that’s led by Mark Tellepsen’s first employee, Jaime. It takes a dedicated crew to help keep a garden like this healthy and thriving. They put in that effort every week, and we really appreciate it,” Elizabeth says. “I don’t think we could have a garden like this with our schedules, and also our skills.”
Off the living room, ivy spills downward and mandevilla curls upward from planters that flank a small statue fountain in a sunny patio with a French Quarter ambience. Potted plants are a subtle but important element throughout the garden. In this corner, mini-landscapes of succulents adorn an iron and marble buffet from Joyce Horn Antiques. As lovely as all of this is, this part of the garden also makes the Kings a bit melancholy — a reminder of friends lost, and what might have been.
They love the whole landscape so much, they want to integrate and open up the home more into it. Those plans were still brewing when Scioneaux, Tellepsen and architect Reagan Miller died in a plane crash in April. The Tellepsen firm, carrying on, still maintains the garden; the Kings will likely work with Miller’s business partner and protégé, Andre De Jean, to realize the next phase of the project.
Life goes on. And as the graceful evolution of the garden reminds them constantly, to everything, there is a season.