Northshore Home magazine highlights the best in architectural design, new construction and renovations, interiors, and landscape design.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1101832
60 SPRING 2019 F OR BETH WELCH AND CHUCK CHRISTENSEN, IT WAS literally love at first site. Gardening wasn't really on this couple's radar—that is, until 2005, when they found the 1 1/2-acre property that they'd always wanted in Newbury. Instead of downsizing, they moved up to a Victorian. Although the site had no gardens upon purchase, it offered an impressive framework of old trees as well as deep, fertile soil. But as always, the location was key: The home is situated just a hop away from New- buryport, a town that inspired novels by Welch's Pulitzer Prize–winning grandfather, John P. Marquand, and was therefore dear to Welch's own heart. Although her grandfather never identified the town by name, everyone suspected that Newburyport served as the "thinly veiled" location (as Welch refers to the novels' early-20th-century setting) for Marquand's social commentaries with a plot. So, based on this and other family connections to the town, the two turned their focus toward country living. The first order of busi- ness was a house renovation. But they chased construc- tion immediately with the installation of a lush garden footsteps from the kitchen. With a massive maple tree as its protagonist, the garden's story takes its cue from the Victorian house—with a little levity tossed in. Other characters include the sedate white picket fence that surrounds it, a fountain, and just the right number of urns holding brightly colored annuals, providing a palette steeped in the greens and muted variegation of geraniums, hostas, ivy, Hakonechloa, and dappled wil- low (Salix 'Hakuro-nishiki'). But the real scene-stealer is Marvin, the name (after Marvin Myles, a female char- acter in one of Marquand's novels) given to a massive face sculpture whose sex is debatable. "She looks like Georgia O'Keefe, in her later years," says Welch. Even with the arresting larger-than-life face, though, it's a restful place. But that was just the beginning; Welch and Christensen always intended to bring the full acre- age into the dialogue. cultivate caption FOUND ART IN THE GARDEN THE CURRENT CHAPTER OF THIS NEWBURY GARDEN IS DRAMATIC AND FULL OF COLORFUL CHARACTERS. By Tovah Martin Photographs by Kindra Clineff The homeowners celebrate a collection of art objects in the garden.