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One day this past winter , after hard rains and heavy current of air had battered Southern California , Michel Perrin flew home from a trip to Asia to find a massive thenar tree in his swim pool . Perrin , a French native who has lived in Beverly Hills since 2006 , was more astonied than chagrined , though it was n’t even his palm . It had tip from a city lot . “ For such a big tree , ” he marvel , “ it has such short , shallow roots ! ”
The house was designed by architect Victor Gruen , the interiors were decorated byChahan Minassian , and the garden were design by the landscape painting designerJudy Kameon , resulting in a beautifully unite visual modality of indoors and alfresco . A sliding glass wall spread the life room to the backyard , where an undulating molding mince the gage area used for entertaining . Photo by : Steve Gunther
He shook his mind . A works moulding lie in ruins , a fencing smashed . But that palm …
As late California transplant , Perrin , his married woman Sally , and their teenagers , Chloé and Emma , still shuttle between Los Angeles and Paris , where he is chairwoman of his family ’s leather goods firm . To them , the Golden State is a novelty , not a cliché , and they populate it in a personal way . When the atmospheric condition cooperates , which is almost all yr round , they endure a classic , indoor - outdoor liveliness in a 1950 home that was made for exactly this life-style . The house , “ very Palm Springs , ” in Sally ’s words , was designed by New architect Victor Gruen with sunny courtyard for lounging and dining and glassful - fence room that open onto gardens . But inside , with the help of French decorator Chahan Minassian , who traveled from Paris for the labor , the couple ruled out the sort of sun - dazzled colors often found here in favor of ivory , soft sage , and blues . alfresco , in a completing spirit of almost European constraint , landscape intriguer Judy Kameon kept the plant life pallet just as unsubdivided . Yet the answer , as one moves from the street through the large front garden , into the entry court , then the theatre and out again , onto the lawn and the patio around the pool , is a elaborated though subtle experience of a admixture of light , zephyr , texture , and tone that seems essential to this place but controlled in a way that California typically is n’t .
A silvery sports fan medal ( Brahea armata ) anchors a corner of the backyard . photograph by : Steve Gunther .
nerveless but not dusty , the Perrins ' low - slung house and embracing gardens are all of a piece , the product of a collaboration between the owners and their two designer . It was Minassian , in fact , who brought in Kameon ( whose architect founder once work out for Victor Gruen ) to the project after seeing the Parker Palm Springs hotel , where Kameon had design a spectacular series of garden room using plants to soften the sleek building while adding exotic lushness to the desert background .
A Spindel hourglass container is planted withKalanchoe beharensis . This Greenform Spindel Container ( $ 467 ) is available fromSpruce Eco - Studio . Photo by : Steve Gunther .
The Perrins yield Kameon a wish list . Michel wanted at least a pair of palms and , given their bicontinental life-style , a depleted - maintenance garden scheme . Avid art collectors , both Michel and Sally requested “ sculptured ” succulents to harmonize with the house and serve , like the fine art deep down , as focal points . They also asked Kameon to scrap the front lawn and boxwood hedging between their house and the busy street . “ They wanted romance , ” she remembers . “ What existed was classic Beverly Hills , everything clip and conventional . As the first thing you see , the front set the pure tone for the entire garden and the star sign . ”
The entry courtyard have orotund , architecturalAgave weberiand rosettes ofAgave parryi , which complement a sculpture by Michael Arntz . Photo by : Steve Gunther .
Minassian walk Kameon through his scheme , show her cloth and other material , which include textured linens and silks , a Tibetan goatskin rug , a mantle of iridescent seashell , all in shade of cream , bronze , ash grey , and aqueous blue to evoke the ocean and the desert .
Inspired by the look and experience of these , she designed a “ demi - silver screen ” of tumid specimen agaves interspersed with tall grass to obstruct portions of the road and frame the building with organic curves . She carried inside feature out : The pearl chevron ofAgave americanavar.medio - picta‘Alba ’ foreshadow the living room ’s rich upholstery . Creamy pea gravel mulch echoes the indoor terrazzo floors , while the plumes of dwarf pampas Mary Jane ( Cortaderia selloana‘Pumila ’ ) mime the goatskin ’s pettable Napoleon . Other flora ( Agave weberiandSenecio mandraliscae ) have a shield - corresponding shimmer and a blue mold intensify by adjacent lime - unripe ferns . Besides heightening the blues , the bright greens also link the front bed visually to a hillside behind the theatre , suggesting the landscape painting ’s ties to the Thornton Wilder man .
Prefabricated pavers from a local edifice provision companionship , arranged in a pattern redolent of champagne fizz , help as steps from the passkey chamber to the backyard . exposure by : Steve Gunther .
As talkative and public as this picture is , the entry court is invitingly private , even as it echo themes from the front . Here , where birch rod Tree and a lawn once created a bland view for the ring glassed - in rooms , now more agaves swirl around a curvy sculpture by Michael Arntz . But instead of admiring these succulents from afar , someone stand inside the court is close enough to appreciate their model leaf and the direct contrast of one variety ’s spine - canted rosette with another ’s broad , fleshy straps . “ Tone - on - note composition call care to contingent , ” says Kameon , who do it to play with scale in restricted spots . “ My impulse in a pocket-size space is to put in big things . ”
The inner courtyard feature an elegant waterwall of snowy Isidor Feinstein Stone . Photo by : Steve Gunther .
Inside the front door , the space chop-chop expand again , and it ’s possible to see past the airy livelihood way — where a round carpet and circular pot forestall the rectilineal architecture — to the deep rear garden , the largest outdoor way of all . Thanks to an original sliding glassful wall , the whole back of the house afford up to the garden . But initially , what was here was n’t suitable . “ The view was miss the middle story , the layered planting between the terra firma and trees that makes a landscape hospitable to people , ” Kameon pronounce . To fix the problem , she fattened and reshaped the plant borderline around a cardinal lawn that the Perrins want to keep for entertaining , adding tropic birds of paradise , aeoniums and sages , along with silver devotee palm for Michel . She left uninfluenced the angled pool , complete with dive board and surrounding pavage and , restate the material body of furnishings in spite of appearance , a house of cards president was hung from a podocarpus tree diagram . When the Perrins take for stepping stones outside their master suite , Kameon scattered orotund concrete pavers in a pattern remindful of champagne fizz .
Dwarf Pampas Grass ( Cortaderia selloana’Pumila ' ) was plant in front to echo color in the mansion . pic by : Steve Gunther .
“ This is what we were looking for when we move to Southern California from Paris , ” Sally say . “ A tranquil and harmonious setting , from the inside out . ”
And what of the palm tree diagram in the pool ?
Clarence Day after it flow , Michel was still waiting for the metropolis to winch it out , he says . But he was n’t raring . The tree transfix him . Half - submerged , like some ground , alien fish , it seemed to impart a message : California is more complicated and changeable than it seems .
And , as it turns out , so are palms .
Plant ListLandscape designer Judy Kameon develop an eye for color and constitution through her earlier work as a o.k. - art painer . In the Perrin garden , she built her palette around colors from inside the sign and chose organic shape and textures to soften the edifice ’s rectilinear forms .
Juniperus procumbens’Nana '
This ground cover - in slightly greener grey than that of the agaves nearby - sweeps through the accounting entry courtyard , add colouring to the gravel carpet and a jolty texture among the smooth riff succulents .
Echeveria’Afterglow '
An elegant succulent with 12- to 16 - in - wide rosettes in dusty blue with pink tips . It produce on a short stem , extend to a maximal tallness of two feet , and provides an appealing variety of texture when used with other groundcovers .
Agave americana var . medio - picta’Alba '
As one of the " sculptural " succulents request by the Perrins , this striped variety entrance the silver - greens and ivories of the home ’s interior in a sea - creature shape that Kameon iterate throughout the garden .
Senecio mandraliscae
One of the garden ’s bluest plants , wind instrument through the front garden perimeter like a stream , knitting together the moody blueness - Louis Harold Gray of century plant and the greener blues of the pampas grass .
Echeveria elegans
Commonly known as Mexican Snowball , this succulent forms clumps of modest , tight , six - inch - tall rosettes . Wonderful in containers or as a tight growing ground cover . Its blue - gray leaves remain lawful to the strict colour palette of the Perrin Garden . Like all succulent it prefers well - drain grease .
Aeonium arboreum ' Zwartkop '
In a arden with few flwoers , Kameon relied on the rosette - form leafage to suggest florals yet contrast with other leafy green . With its coppery - bronze cast , ' Zwartkop ' also break up up the patina of the courtyard carving .
Asparagus densiflorus
" A bright putting surface among blues can deepen all the tones , " says Kameon . In the front delimitation , this plant not only append a shot of intense chartreuse , it also emerges from the vortex of senecio with the spectacular textured tentacles .
Artemisia’Powis Castle '
A silver - leafed perennial , ease the front garden ’s more rigid , still elements , such as the large American aloe and aloes .
SourcesJudy Kameon , Elysian Landscapes
Susan Heeger is the joint author ofFrom Seed to Skillet . Her most recent write up forGarden Designwas " Top of Their Game " ( April 2010 ) .
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