Photo by Carmel Brantley
The enchanting garden at the back of the house features beds filled with blue Salvia and purple Duranta ‘Sapphire Showers’ trees.
We were in New York when we got the call to redo the landscape of the Firestone Estate in Palm Beach. The house was famous because it was on an unusually large lot (more than three acres) on Lake Worth and had been designed by one of the great Palm Beach architects, John Volk. We had become obsessed with Volk after having had the privilege to rent a Volk house on Pendleton Avenue when we first came to Palm Beach. He had a particular gift for determining the scale of rooms, which were always appropriately grand but also livable. The Firestone Estate was arguably one of his best houses.
Photo by Carmel Brantley
A 1930s decorative pot planted with a blue agave peeks out from a beautiful mass of purple Duranta ‘Sapphire Showers’ flowers.
Photo by Carmel Brantley
A monarch butterfly visits a purple Duranta ‘Sapphire Showers’ tree.
Photo by Carmel Brantley
A mighty kapok dominates the landscape of this historic Palm Beach estate. Royal palms soar behind the tall Cuban laurel hedge ringing the property. Ficus Alii standard and purple Durant ‘Sapphire Showers’ trees rise on the left above Podocarpus hedges and cones, white hibiscus, pinwheel jasmine, and low cotoneaster hedges.
This was a fantastic project for us because the owners were extremely sympathetic to and respectful of Fernando’s design. It was also wonderful because the property boasted one of the great kapok trees in the southeastern United States. In fact, it was this magnificent tree, brought from the Bahamas in the 1800s, that attracted our clients to the place. Sadly, the house had been the victim of a complicated divorce, resulting in years of neglect and slow rot. By the time our clients came to inspect the property, the grounds were so overgrown that it was impossible to see the giant kapok from the loggia at the back of the house. It was not until they walked down a path away from the house that the glorious tree came into view.
Photo by Carmel Brantley
A spectacular banyan tree.
Photo by Carmel Brantley
A majestic Cuban laurel hedge towers over lower Podocarpus hedges, beds of Apostle irises, Green-Tip cocoplums, yaupon holly, Jasmine Minima, and a Diamond zoysia lawn. Ganges primrose surrounds the coral-stone fountain.
Photo by Carmel Brantley
Confederate jasmine surrounds an Adam-style round window.
It may be hard to believe today, but there was a time in the United States, belore landscape architects existed, when the task of designing the grounds of a house was typically undertaken by the architect. This property was no exception. Volk had designed a simple tropical garden that Fernando tried to honor in his selection of trees and palms, as well as in his design of the fountains and renovation of the pool. We think that the master would have approved.
By Tim Johnson
Photography by Carmel Brantley
Excerpted from The Young Man and the Tree: Fernando Wong Landscape Design (Vendome, 2024).
Buy the book and enjoy more from this collection of extraordinary private gardens.
By Tim Johnson | Photography by Carmel Brantley
See more from Fernando Wong on his website, Instagram, and our interview with the designer.
