Donnell Garden

During a recent conference hosted by the California Preservation Foundation in Napa, I wandered around the Donnell Garden, an iconic mid-century garden completed by Thomas Church, with Lawrence Halprin and architect George Rockrise, in 1948. Apparently the kidney-shaped swimming pool became the iconic swimming pool of the 1950s, and the magazine House Beautiful featured it on the cover in 1951. I admit that the pool looked inviting, and I easily imagined hosting a barbecue with friends on the expansive patio with the gorgeous view of the bay in the background. The lanai and bath house still retain their original wallpaper, furniture, and fixtures down to the monogrammed bath towels.

Richard McPherson, a San Francisco-based landscape architect, led the tour of the gardens, and I noted that he provided scant information on the main residence, designed by architect Austin Pierpoint five years after the pool's completion and equally as interesting as the garden. Additionally, I attended a panel discussion on the preservation of historic modern landscapes during the conference, which focused primarily on gardens. The speakers discussed at great length the preservation tools to protect historic gardens, yet they situated the garden as a separate element from the residences and buildings associated with them. I've noticed that architectural historians have done a poor job of describing a building's landscaping, and my knowledge of plants and landscapes remains extremely limited. Yet I discovered at the conference that the landscape folks treated architecture as a mere backdrop to historic gardens. We need to take a holistic or integrative approach to documenting historic sites that includes both the physical landscape and the built environment.

At any rate, here are some photos to enjoy of the Donnell Garden. From the top: as close as I could get to the iconic view of the pool, the southwest corner of the main residence, the juniper hedge lining the southern boundary of the garden, and the original furniture in the lanai.