Tales of the City
July 1, 2008
Among the traits shared by many of the world’s truly great houses, an extraordinary garden and sublime views rank near the top. A case in point is Locksley Hall, an 1895 Classical Revival residence on Belvedere Island in San Francisco Bay, north of the Golden Gate. The landmark mansion is a six-bedroom, 10,000-square-foot jewel that has been painstakingly rebuilt by its current owner, who purchased the 1.2-acre property in the early 1990s and has now placed it on the market for $65 million. Understanding that any jewel is accentuated by a terrific setting, he also undertook a five-year, $6 million project to breathe new life into the estate’s garden and maximize its commanding panorama of San Francisco and the bay.
Built for a banker at a time when the country homes of well-heeled San Franciscans dotted Belvedere, Locksley Hall was once the centerpiece of a 30-acre estate that included stone entry columns with bronze lanterns designed by Hearst Castle architect Julia Morgan. For the garden, which sloped toward Angel island, azaleas and rhododendrons were brought from the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition after its closing. Following the original estate’s subdivision in 1940, however, Locksley Hall gradually fell into disrepair, then a 1983 storm pounded the garden and caused a serious landslide on the property’s east side.
The Herculean task of renovating the garden began with rerouting utilities to the house, repairing the landslide, regrading the entire site, and constructing major retaining walls. "We had to design in phases as we went along, because we were working around the temporary roads in place during construction of the walls and swimming pool," says Stephen Suzman, whose San Francisco–based landscape architecture firm, Suzman & Cole Design Associates, won the commission after a fervent competition. "This was probably the most complex project we’ve ever done."
What Suzman and his project landscape architect, Jean Schaffeld, created in close consultation with the owner was a series of terraces descending the hillside, each with its own unique feel and view; with a palette that relies on various shades of green to unify the spaces. "We wanted to give the entire garden a quiet, sophisticated, textural quality with a few splashes of subdued color," says Schaffeld. Linking the terraces are paths and stairways paved in ancient Chinese granite salvaged from villages now inundated by the Yangtze River Dam; retaining walls are clad in limestone recovered from facades of houses affected by the dam. The new bronze light fixtures, gate, fountain, and railings incorporate design motifs from Julia Morgan’s original entry.
Passing through the gateway is like entering another world. The air suddenly smells of jasmine and mock orange, and the sound of splashing water rises from deeper in the garden. Through the lush foliage—a combination of new specimen plants and existing pine and Blue Atlas Cedar trees—a small slice of the bay draws you in with a promise of grander views. Nearby is the front door and a wraparound, teak-floored porch where the vista opens to an over-the-treetops panorama sweeping from the hills of Berkeley to the Golden Gate Bridge. Straight ahead, past a burbling lily pond and down another set of stairs, a large stone terrace and lawn have been carved out of the hillside to give the owner a space for entertaining. At one end of the lawn is the source of the water sounds that filter through the garden: a grottolike fountain where streams of water arc from bronze medallions set into a mossy, limestone wall and three rivulets spill from a custom cast-bronze basin resembling a half-shell. Adjacent to the lawn, a rose garden recalls memories of San Francisco lawyer and rosarian Gordon Blanding, who owned Locksley Hall from 1905 until 1940.
Down another level is the swimming pool. Tiled with jade-colored Indonesian stone and surrounded by granite coping, it is flanked by pale, purple wisteria that drapes over a pergola of monolithic Chinese sandstone columns and Burmese teak beams. From the pool, basalt stepping-stones snake down the hillside to a shaded, woodland garden and a large spa lined with fossil-embedded Moroccan black stone. Trees and shrubs surrounding both the pool and spa provide privacy, while allowing vast views of sailboats and pelicans, Angel Island, Alcatraz, and the San Francisco skyline, which seems to float like a mirage on the bay.
Though the garden is almost entirely new, it still manages to feel like a gentle and timeless marriage of stone, water, and foliage set against a backdrop of bay views and open sky. "I fell in love with the site," says Suzman, "and our goal was to keep its spirit intact. Locksley Hall has lasted for more than a century, and we certainly hope this garden is around at least that long."
Suzman & Cole Design Associates, 415.252.0111, www.suzmancole.com
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