Building a Formal Arrival on Naushon Island
Set in front of a stone house wrapped in ivy, this landscape construction project built a new arrival for a Naushon Island estate. Our crews laid a granite cobblestone drive, raised stucco garden walls capped in bluestone, and set broad steps climbing to the gardens above. Clipped hedges and layered borders were planted to hold the formal lines the architecture had already set.
A Granite Cobblestone Drive, Laid Course by Course
Granite cobblestones run in even courses from the entrance, edged on one side by granite curbing that separates the stone from the asphalt approach, and on the other by a planted border the length of the wall. A dark-leaved hedge was set along that border with young trees placed at intervals behind it, so the drive is framed on both sides.
Cobble is slower to lay than an asphalt apron and it costs more to do properly. It also takes frost movement without cracking, which is what fails a poured surface on an exposed coastal site.
From the drive, broad bluestone steps climb between stucco piers capped in the same stone as the walls, with a single lantern standing on the upper pier. The wall runs the full width of the frontage, holding the grade change between the drive and the gardens.
Formal Plantings & Garden Borders
The planting follows the same discipline as the stone. Clipped boxwood is set in two tiers, one above the wall and one below, so from the lawn the eye reads a single continuous band of green. Hydrangeas fill the beds where the frontage turns and the formal lines give way. Roses were trained along the top of the wall, and by midsummer they break over the bluestone cap and soften the whole edge.
How the Frontage Changes Through the Year
The photographs on this page were taken across three seasons on this one property. Roses are in full bloom over the wall cap in July. By late September the ivy on the stone has turned red and copper while the boxwood is still holding its line. The following May, an eastern redbud flowers against a facade gone green again.
None of this looked established on the day the crews left. That takes years, which is why we stay on a property once construction ends, managing and refining the plantings as they mature.
Chris Mark founded CMS in the early 1970s. Fifty years on, we are still looking after landscapes the company built.
More of our work: our approach to landscape design, and a hillside landscape construction in Falmouth. To start a project, get in touch.
