REIMAGINING A 1790s GENTLEMAN’S FARM IN CONNECTICUT

Janice Parker is a landscape architect, horticultural specialist, garden consultant, teacher, floral designer, and speaker. Since creating Janice Parker Landscape Architects in 1984, she has brought the firm to national prominence and has been honored with multiple awards, including the 2016 Stanford White Award for Garden Design, the 2015 Professional Merit Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects, the 2020 and 2024 Palladio Award for Landscape Design, and the 2024 McKim, Mead & White Award for Garden Design.

Photos by NEIL LANDINO, JR

The Heritage Farm Project

THE HERITAGE FARM PROJECT, a gently rolling northwestern piece of rural countryside, encompasses a 14.5-acre parcel of land in Litchfield County, Connecticut. This site featured a farm built in 1790 with a modest home, apple orchard, barns, fields, and a full complement of livestock and animals. The new landscape transforms the idea of a rustic barn in a field into a pastoral home in its natural surroundings.

Design

THE PROJECT DESIGN intent was to take the neglected farm and restore it to its former glory. The client’s values required the use of structure, which was completely in tune with the farmer’s pragmatic shaping of the land. This design was about editing and discipline.

THE MASONRY AT THE TERRACES was planned to be simple. Reclaimed local granite slabs were used throughout the property. The pergola is a replica of its former self. The redesigned structure pays homage to the apple orchard through a custom lattice gate that opens to the fields beyond.

THE MAIN BEAMS were fashioned in hand-hewn hemlock from reclaimed railroad timbers. New fruiting apple trees, as well as sugar maples, were added to the orchards as a respectful way to reveal the farmer’s historical shaping of the land using grids and geometry.

THE SITE IS RESTORED to a functioning gentleman’s farm to raise livestock, train horses, and harvest crops. The farm fields were reinvigorated and seeded for haying while the residence has been transformed into a unique retreat with designated areas for relaxation, reflection, and entertaining.