Empire State Of Mind

In the most unexpected location, a lush coastal garden champions a global approach

- Eric Boman

At the end of a winding lane bordered by a tangle of honeysuckle and wild roses lies a magical garden far removed from a traditional East Hampton manicured showpiece.

To the sounds of waves crashing on the beach, this one unfolds like the petals of a flower in surprising and delightful ways, a pleasure still fresh to its owners, Katharine and William Rayner. If Kathy had asked anyone whether it might be possible to create an intricately elaborate garden on the leeward side of a sand dune between the roaring Atlantic and Georgica Pond, she would have been told no. But Kathy didn’t ask – she went ahead and did just that.

After renting Woody House for eight years, Kathy bought it in the late eighties not long before her marriage to Billy, and fixed it up just in time for the arrival of Hurricane Bob. In the decades since, the sloping terrain’s cutting garden and few flower beds have evolved into a magnificent confection of spaces, paths, vistas, bowers, and follies that invoke the garden cultures of England, Italy, Persia and India. Not lacking in a garden pedigree – her mother, Anne Cox Chambers, created, with Peter Coats, Rosemary Verey, and Ryan Gainey, the celebrated sixteen-hectare grounds of her Provençal home, Le Petit Fontanille – Kathy nurtured her interest in horticulture by visiting storied estates and reading voraciously on the subject. She admits to feeling most affected by the memoirs of Babur, founder of the Mogul empire, and the writings of Vita Sackville-West – representing a span of five centuries.