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by Michael Weishan
What to do with the driveway is one of the most common questions
I am faced with as a landscape designer and restorer. Ubiquitous
in the modern landscape, driveways set the tone of the house and
garden and, as such, deserve considerable attention. Ironically,
they are one of the elements of the landscape most often overlooked.
Gardeners who go through considerable trouble and expense with
the rest of their yards often entirely neglect the driveway -
marring the effect they've worked so hard to achieve elsewhere.
Such was the case with this Massachusetts project. Although we
had designed a magical garden in the back of the house, the plain
asphalt drive out front clashed with the classical tone and mood
we had tried to achieve in other parts of the property. The owner
is an avid gardener and hostess, and it was important to find
an approach to the house that matched the elegant gardens in the
back.
The house, built in the 1920s, was designed by Royal Barry Wills,
whose name later became synonomous with the Cape-style house he
helped to popularize. Though Wills' original designs became quite
bastardized and degraded, the first Cape houses had truly elegant
layouts and lines. And this particular house, designed and built
by the master himself, stands out as one of the early shining
examples of the genre.
Taking my cue from the classical lines of the architecture, we
first replaced the beat-up asphalt with river-washed pea stone.
Antique-style macadam, where the stones are pressed into a hot
tar mix and then rolled, also would have achieved the same effect,
and would be a better choice for a sloping site, since gravel
has a tendency to move downhill.
To break up the expanse of gravel, a simple, circular medallion
made of cobbles and granite was installed - at once creating a
focal point and inviting the eye to roam around. When working
with gravel in particular, it is important to surround it with
edging to keep it from spilling into the surrounding areas. Here
we edged the drive with cobbles, which matched the medallion and
echoed those used in other parts of the yard.
 The
clean, classical style of the fencing and the simple Versailles-style
boxes planted with boxwood shield the private garden behind and
echo the lines of the house. The fence begins and ends with crisp,
visual logic, also helping to unify the house and the garden.
Although there is no building or structure to provide a natural
terminus for it on the right side, the carefully placed plantings
hide the corner and fool the eye into thinking the fence actually
ends there. This trick of letting the fence "die" into
a dense planting comes in very handy in landscape design. The
key is that the termination must be out of common sight - merely
running the fence into a planting in the middle of the yard won't
work.
The planters also complement the house and work to soften the
fence, their greenery giving the idea of a planted courtyard to
an otherwise empty space. All in all, the driveway ensemble sets
a quietly elegant period tone for the home, welcoming visitors
to both house and garden.
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