On Many Levels : A Hillside Garden in the Spirit of the Old World
ARCHITECT Edward Carson Beall’s buildings-- shopping malls, restaurants and homes in the South Bay--are distinctly Old World, so it’s not surprising that his own home and garden on the Palos Verdes Peninsula have a similar style. The garden is on a very steep hillside, and, like the hillside gardens of the French and Italian Riviera, it is terraced into several levels. On the uppermost level, a good hike from the house, is what Beall calls “the far pavilion”--a gazebo with a view across the bay toward Malibu. On the second terrace, Beall has planted a rose garden with old and new varieties.
Olive trees interspersed with Lady Banks roses grow on the third level down. In Mediterranean gardens, roses and other vines are frequently trained up into the open, airy structure of an olive. On this same level, there is a bench where one can pause. Spires of hollyhocks bloom behind it, and herbs, iris and miscellaneous bulbs grow one step down.
The bottom terrace is the most intriguing, as it is surrounded by the tall walls of the house on one side and a large retaining wall on the other. Situated just outside the French doors that lead from the house, the massive retaining wall was a potential eyesore. But Beall borrowed an idea from Italy’s Tivoli Gardens and fitted the wall with lion’s-head fountains that spurt small jets of water into stone troughs. Ivy covers most of the stonework; the lions’ heads peer out as though they were looking out from the jungle. Larger pieces, from some three tons of French Gothic cathedral remnants discovered during a barge trip on the Seine, lean against the retaining wall. The rest are scattered throughout the garden.
To complete the Italianate image, a grotto has been built in one corner, and stones are mortared together roughly to make a shallow cave behind a fishpond. Humidity rises off the pond, benefiting the moss, orchids and bromeliads that cling to the rocks above. There is also a rustic fireplace and barbecue with French furniture.
The garden with its fountains and ivy-covered wall, grotto and architectural remnants, evokes the image of an Italian villa in a back yard that might have seemed merely like a a dreary pit next to a retaining wall.
