Rhythms of the Baroque

Le Jardin du Bâtiment, La Vendée, France John Hoyland visits a garden conjured from the imagination of the celebrated conductor and keen gardener William Christie

- John Hoyland

THE moment I saw this place I fell in love with it. This was somewhere that I had lived within my imagination,’ says William Christie. ‘Finally, I had found the place where I would make a home and a garden.’

Looking with him at a photograph that had been taken at that time of Le Bâtiment, in an isolated rural area of the Vendée region of France, it is hard to understand his enthusiasm. The black-and-white image shows a neglected, unremarkable 17th-century farmhouse, scarred with corrugated iron and with no garden save an ailing boxwood tree. It is a testament to Mr Christie’s imagination and energy that this dream discovery is now, three decades later, an elegant home and a garden so significant that the French government has declared it a Monument Historique.

Mr Christie grew up in America, in Buffalo, New York state, where the seeds of both of his passions—music and gardens—were sown by his parents. His mother was a local choir mistress and his father gave the young William his own piece of garden. ‘It was a very small plot, only a few feet wide, but there I witnessed the magical transformation of bulbs into tulips or a few scattered seeds into beautiful flowers. Gardening has marked my life and brought me great joy ever since.’