at River Road Farm

Uncultivated land around an 18th-century farmhouse slowly became a series of garden rooms, formal but not overly structured.

- CARYN B. DAVIS

ROBB NESTOR AND BILL REYNOLDS looked at over 200 houses before buying a 1732 center-chimney Colonial, on 11 uncultivated acres in Connecticut. "I desperately wanted a 'garden room' so we kept looking for a house with one, then realized we'd have to create it ourselves," Robb says. "When we found the property, we knew this was it. It spoke to us; we saw its potential." When they began their search for a retirement home, the couple were living in Atlanta, where Robb had a successful landscape-design business. Initially they looked in Georgia and Tennessee-until Bill stumbled across the book The Garden Room: Bringing Nature Indoors, by Timothy Mawson. The book showcases many Connecticut scenes. The couple found those so appealing, they headed north, to Robb's home state, looking for locations from the book. "That book brought us to Connecticut and to our house," Bill says.

Over a three-year period, the two shuttled from Georgia to Connecticut on weekends, each time packing a 26-foot truck with plant materials, garden ornaments, and interior furnishings. "It was 16-hour drive back and forth but the advantage was we had that time to talk about the garden," Bill says.

"And seeing the place with fresh eyes every time we returned helped us with the full picture-what we wanted, what was working and what wasn't," Robb adds.

The vision for the garden, which now flows seamlessly from one space into the next across three cultivated acres, began with the Perennial Garden. They placed a fountain in the middle as the focal point because the house overlooks this swath of land. The rest of the gardens evolved around it.

GARDENS