Dan Kiley. Photo courtesy Aaron Kiley
on beechwood, an elegant garden
with roots in landscape history
by stephen brookes | photos by tod connell
Daniel Urban Kiley was perhaps the most renowned modernist landscape architect of the 20th Century — and in the early 1950s, just before he became famous, he designed nearly 100 gardens in Hollin Hills. What happens if you try to recreate one of Kiley’s original plans now? Two Beechwood Road homeowners set out to find out …
Above: a view of the patio into the back garden, ringed with river birches. At top: an orange Pat Monk sculpture graces the landscape.
Tucked away on a hillside above Beechwood Road is a serene, hidden paradise: an elegant landscape that seems to emerge from the woods, flow down a gently undulating slope past island-like gardens, then come to rest at the foot of a gingko tree. It’s a landscape that feels natural yet thoroughly and thoughtfully designed, where vistas open up at every turn and a bold, imaginative mix of plants provides ever-changing color throughout the seasons. Charming, even captivating, it seems to have an almost physical effect — swept up in its easy flow, you feel as if you’re being carried gently from one point of beauty to the next.
Lovely as it is, the garden has another, equally intriguing side. A decade ago, when Shane Thrailkill and Steven Costoff bought the property and set about developing the garden, they learned that it had first been designed in 1953 by a young landscape architect named Daniel Urban Kiley — who would go on to become perhaps the most celebrated American garden designer of the 20th century. Internationally famous, Kiley designed the landscapes for Dulles Airport, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, the headquarters of the Ford Foundation, the National Gallery of Art's East Wing, and many other projects around the world, becoming known as “the father of modern landscape design.”
That’s an impressive pedigree for a Hollin Hills garden — but after six decades, the couple found, there wasn’t much evidence of any design at all at their new property. “It was basically English ivy, trees, and a big stump from a red oak that was about 15 feet in diameter,” says Thrailkill. “And when it rained, water just flooded everywhere.”
So Thrailkill and Costoff turned to Harvard University, where Kiley’s archives are stored, and obtained a copy of Kiley’s original plan. It’s a comprehensive, richly-detailed document with specific instructions for virtually every square foot of the half-acre lot, from plantings and paths, to a patio, play area, and a pond. But when they compared the plan to the property itself, only a few ambiguous traces of the original Kiley design remained — if, indeed, it had ever been implemented at all.
“There were some pathways and things that seemed to replicate the plan a bit,” says Costoff, “and some of the beds were similar. But none of the plantings were the same.”
Shane Thrailkill and Steven Costoff
Dan Kiley and Hollin Hills
Maybe that was to be expected. From the first days of Hollin Hills, architect Charles Goodman and developer Robert Davenport wanted the community to have a modern, integrated landscape that would connect the houses to nature, and knit the neighborhood together in a park-like setting. To that end, each new homeowner was provided with a professional plan for their lot, and each plan was designed to connect with the next. But the new owners were left to implement the plans themselves — and, as most were young, inexperienced and on a budget, the plans were usually taken as mere suggestions, and were implemented piecemeal, if at all.
The first landscapes were designed by Lou “Barney” Voigt, a brilliant designer with a flowing and almost biomorphic approach, who blurred property lines, created long views, and pioneered the use of informal “outdoor rooms.” But after Voigt’s untimely death in 1953, he was succeeded by Dan Kiley, who drew up at least 91 plans for Hollin Hills over the next two years, many of them for contiguous properties along Beechwood, Rebecca Drive and Glasgow Road.
In many ways, Kiley was the obvious choice for the job. He had known Voigt at Harvard, and had worked with Goodman on the National Airport terminal; they all shared the same modernist philosophy and inventive spirit. Yet Kiley was already moving away from Voigt’s fluid, relaxed style, and toward an increasingly formal approach that used grids and geometric shapes to give his gardens a clearly visible structure.
“Kiley’s landscapes were very intentional, whereas Voigt’s were much more naturalistic,” says landscape architect Dennis Carmichael, author of “A Landscape Aesthetic for Hollin Hills.” “Voigt didn’t want you to see his landscapes — he wanted them to be invisible. And that definitely wasn’t Kiley, whose landscapes were very distinct.”
And unlike Voigt — who worked directly with homeowners, passed out gardening advice in the Bulletin, and was often on-site in Hollin Hills — Kiley worked hundreds of miles away in his office in Vermont, drawing his plans from a distance and mailing them to homeowners when they were finished. With close to a hundred gardens to complete in Hollin Hills over two years, he moved at breakneck speed, telling an interviewer in 1997 that he “pulled out all the tricks” and created each plan (for which he was paid $150) in just days. “If I had had a week,” he said, “I probably would have spoiled them.”
Far from dashed-off sketches, though, Kiley’s Hollin Hills plans are serious exercises in design, made in what he called a period of “searching and developing.” And even though few of the plans were actually built, they reflect the maturing of his style as he moved from his free-form looseness in the early 1940s, to the tighter, neo-classical style that would lead to his breakthrough masterpiece — the iconic 1955 Irwin Miller Garden in Columbus, Indiana, which established him as the most exciting landscape architect of his generation.
Kiley-inspired geometric pathways lead around the house
Dan Kiley. Photos courtesy Aaron Kiley
A secluded, perfectly circular “picnic area” in Kiley’s Beechwood Road plan included benches and a fence, and was shaded by two large existing trees; it would have been a focal point in the view from the house.
Kiley’s Beechwood Road Plan
All of which makes Kiley’s plan for the Thrailkill-Costoff garden even more intriguing. While there are plenty of “soft” elements in the design, Kiley’s mature style is increasingly clear, as he uses an interlocking series of geometric arcs (done in bosques, mass plantings and pathways) to tie the property together, define areas, and create a unified landscape.
An arc, in fact, would have been the first thing a visitor to the property would have seen — a line of eight crab apples curving down a slope toward the street, a striking gesture that embodied Kiley’s new style. Behind it, another more subtle arc — this one a pathway — curved loosely in the opposite direction, embracing the house and leading into the back yard. That path then connected with a strictly geometric, horseshoe-shaped path that led to a secluded ‘picnic area’ with benches and a stone floor midway up the lawn, a perfectly circular outdoor room that was hidden from view in a copse of trees. And defining the entire back yard was the most visually striking arc of all — a line of eleven river birches that curved along the far edge of the property.
Amid all this interesting geometry, Kiley carved out a flowing lawn down the hillside, and connected the house to the garden with a rectangular brick patio and a small square pool with steppers across it. It all looks balanced yet dynamic, and organizes the property into a well-planted area surrounding the house, an open area at the far edge of the back yard, and a middle area with more ornamental plantings and the central ‘picnic area’ which served as a focal point for the garden.
All in all, says Carmichael, the plan “looks like Kiley, with big, bold moves,” while adding that it’s also “softer and less geometric” than other plans of Kiley’s that he’s seen.
Dan Kiley’s 1953 landscape plan for 7202 Beechwood (click to enlarge). Note the geometry: a “horseshoe” of 11 river birches defining the south end of the property (at left) is echoed by a geometric horseshoe path at center that leads to a circular “picnic area.” The arcs are repeated in the north (front) part of the property with a loosely curving path and an an arc of crab apples, while rectangles define the patio, play area and other outdoor living spaces.
To Implement, Or Not to Implement?
Yet, for all of its interest, did it make sense for Thrailkill and Costoff to even try to recreate the Kiley plan? There were obvious challenges: sixty years had gone by, architectural additions had substantially changed the footprint of the house, and while the shape of the lawn was intact, several large trees that had served as a focal point were gone. And, while some of Kiley’s specific planting instructions were easy to follow, others proved far less manageable — such as his signature mass plantings.
“After we deciphered Kiley’s plant names, we took the list up to Merrifield Garden Center,” says Costoff. “And I said, ‘we need 15 crab apples, and 25 Japanese Quince,’ and I went through the list. And they said, ‘well … how many acres do you live on?’ So we really pulled back on that!”
“You see this a lot in Kiley’s plans,” adds Dennis Carmichael. “Masses of plantings, not onesies and twosies of plants you like, but fifteen of this and fifteen of that — plants that are defining a space.”
Moreover, even though Kiley had largely called for species native to the area, many of his plants weren’t thriving on the site. “We learned very quickly that a lot of things that Kiley had in here, just didn't work,” says Thrailkill. “We tried for five years to grow blueberry bushes,” he adds, citing one of Kiley’s favorite plants. “But the soil’s too acidic.”
And the couple had their own preferences for the garden, as well. They’d already built a pond for their koi, and wanted to have a small, intimate deck just off the living room. A key priority was to replace the vast stretches of ivy with lawn, to help soak up what Thrailkill describes as “rivers of water” that would wash over the sloping site during downpours. They wanted more light in the garden, so they took down an enormous tree that had played a role in the Kiley design. And they were also admirers of the Dutch landscape designer Piet Oudolf, and were eager to emulate Oudolf’s plant selections that provide year-round visual interest.
In the koi pond
The New Garden
So — much like the early homeowners in the 1950s — the Kiley plan became less of a rigid blueprint, and more of a source of inspiration for a garden they would create themselves. They installed a Kiley-esque bluestone path that runs along the sides of the house, for example — but it’s even more formal and symmetrical than Kiley’s design, and no longer extends into the back yard. They planted most of the arc of river birches at the far end of the property in 2015, but they decided not to put in Kiley’s line of crab apples in the front yard, and the three Gingko trees along the driveway were reduced to a single specimen. The circular “secret garden” — a focal point for the garden when seen from the house — was not recreated. And all in all, estimates Thrailkill, only about ten percent of the actual plants are what Kiley called for in his original design.
“We tried to be faithful to the aesthetic, rather than trying to recreate something exactly,” explains Thrailkill.
And the result is both beautiful, and very personal. Emulating Kiley, the couple set about creating vistas, focal points, privacy from neighbors, places for sitting, and a sense of flow and visual interest — all while learning which plants would thrive in their environment throughout the year. Kiley used a lot of witch hazel in his designs, for instance, so the couple built a “winter garden” using four different varieties of the plant, adding in a Japanese Paper Bush Edgeworthia (which blooms in February and March with clusters of white flowers) and many more.
“In the midst of winter you have these blooming witch hazels,” says Thrailkill. “Then in the spring you have the hellebores, Japanese peonies, and coral bark Japanese maples. You’re getting color all year round.”
There are small, distinct gardens throughout the landscape, all planted with an eye to visual delight. A perennial garden, for instance, includes Joe Pye Weed, Mountain Mint, asters, dwarf lavender, white lavender, alliums, valerian, salvia, peonies, massive row of irises, and a Persicaria Polymorpha with beautiful white blooms. And elsewhere on the property you’ll find weeping hemlock and dwarf hemlock, honeysuckle, Mexican feather grasses, Cryptomerias, hostas, Munstead roses — the list goes on and on, and not even the couple is sure how many different plants they have.
And in the end, the garden — for all its careful design — is constantly changing.
“You can’t just take a cookie-cutter approach,” says Thrailkill. “You have to listen to the garden. You have to try things, season after season — and you get inspiration.” And the most important thing, he adds, is not how closely the garden adheres to Kiley’s original ideas, but rather that it stays in character with the house, and with the community itself.
“The garden is a living thing,” says Thrailkill. “It talks to you. You listen to it and you think, ‘we’re just caretakers.’ That’s the whole idea behind this garden.”
— Stephen Brookes, June 2024
A range of plantings provide year-round color and interest
The front of the house, seen from Beechwood Road
stephen brookes is the editor of the hollin hills journal. he’s a journalist whose work has been published in the washington post, newsweek, asia times, the chicago tribune, the far eastern economic review, architectural digest, modernism magazine and many others.
tod connell is a professional architectural and interiors photographer in hollin hills, whose widely-published photographs of hollin hills homes have defined the look of the community for many years.