Labor of Love

As a surprise for his wife, Erin-and to instill a passion for gardening in his two daughters-Ben Napier crafted a thoughtful outdoor oasis

THE NAPIERS are no strangers to tackling a project, but the greenhouse and garden Ben built for his wife, Erin, and their young daughters, Helen and Mae, was especially personal. "We both want our kids to grow up with a love of gardening," he says. "We want them to know how to do all the stuff our parents and the generations before them did. It was a big part of growing up and feels like something that has been lost in the last couple of decades."

The inspiration for the structure (which was revealed as a Mother's Day surprise on the Napiers' HGTV show Home Town last spring) first struck when the couple renovated the property's barn a few years ago. "We had to replace the doors, so suddenly I had these pieces of wood that I didn't want to just throw out," says Ben, who incorporated them into the greenhouse's siding.

To align with the existing architecture of the family's Laurel, Mississippi, farm, every element of the building was carefully and sustainably considered, even down to how it was set into the slope of the land for seamless entry. "Erin is an incredible designer with a great eye, so I knew it had to be beautiful, which was the hard part for me," says Ben, who jokes that otherwise he would have "thrown up a shed with windows and called it a day."

MADE WITH MEMORIES