She has always been out there in our other homes, but it took Meier’s great expanses of glass up to 20 feet high in the living room that’s made us a perpetual party to her vast visual variety show. From spectacular sunrises, sunsets, rainbows, and lightning storms to fabulous v formations of Canadian geese
to thousands of Sandy’s Spring daffodils
to the picture-perfect sight of our site all covered in snow white.
Fortunately for us our property’s boundaries are defined by a powerful a necklace of large diameter trees.
A major role of most people’s landscaping is dedicated blocking their view of unsightly neighbors. Thanks to good luck, good neighbors and favorable zoning that’s not been the case in our case. This has enabled our over thirty-year veteran landscaper Toni Nascimento and his crew often complimented by yours truly to launch a concerted pruning program to clear out our thick underbrush and low hanging branches in order to better free our favorite trees visually. The more we’ve done the more we've joined with our adjoining neighbors’ properties to create a into seamlessly seamless park.One of our favorite trees has always been the weeping white pine between the house and the garage. It originally topped out at garage height. Over time its gracefully grown to twice its original height and become a favorite habitat for many a memorable meal.
Even on the sunniest of days we enjoy dining under its needled umbrella on portable chairs that come and go when we go leaving our tree free of all distractions until our next feeding. Outback there's an equally admirable dining venue sitting under an allée of white birch trees
laid out by our longtime landscape architect Walter Carrell. Even when their leaves have fallen, and the restaurant is closed Walters white birches remain a sight to behold. Years ago when we visited Kyoto Japan's a local landscaper told us the total test of landscaping is not how your place looks when things are in full bloom it’s how they appear out of season.
From what i see we’ve definitely passed that test. Our House’s outdoors is strictly mother nature's domain, and all of its sculpture will always be of her creation.
Our Audubon activity took off when Sandy was recovering from a stroke and one of her doctors recommended bird watching as a form of therapy. That sounded simple enough until we looked for feeders and realized how goofy looking most of them looked. It took a while before we found two that could pass Sandy’s muster, a stainless steel gem from Germany and a wooden one that purported to be inspired by Mies Van Der Rohe’s Barcelona pavilion.
After a number of busy years of service, they were replaced by two much larger restaurants. Outback the top surface of the block wall surrounding the kitchen, out front a large diameter tree stump. Sandy's buffets are now open all day at least three meals a day every day of the year offering a four-course menu that always includes peanuts in the shell. On a typical day we serve over 55 of them to our many satisfied customers who thoughtfully leave no peanut shells behind nor nary a parcel of poop. When we’re in the kitchen it's table and chairs provide us front row seats in what we call our nature observatory.
Our regular performers include blue Jays, black crows, red wing blackbirds, cardinals, various woodpeckers, lots of doves at one time a wild turkey plus numerous other fly by nights. (pic) We also cater to a number of four legged feeders that include sly foxes,
families of raccoons,
an occasional deer and more than one large hungry bear.`
We used to have a significant squirrel population; until a few hungry hawks came swooping in, in search of a square squirrel meal. Our architecture and crafts will always be great to live with and look at but what you see is what you get. Mother Nature on the other hand is an ever surprising often evolving dynamic work in progress.
Foreground, middle ground and background we've been visually spoiled by our prized possessions the magic of Richard Meier’s architecture and mother nature's greatest show on earth. Wherever we've looked whenever we've looked it's never grown old and unlike its owners it continues to improve with age.
