September 27, 2010I am not a gardener. We don’t even have a terrace. But I love to listen to gardeners talk about their creations. The one I know best is the garden that belongs to Paul’s uncle, Graham Cousins, near Lutterworth in Leicestershire in the Midlands. Someday I hope to interview him about his life’s work and write about it. When he came to visit us several years ago, he took a trip to El Cerrito to visit a woman named Marjory Harris and see the garden of the artist Harland Hand (1922–1998), which she owned at the time. He came back impressed.
On Sunday I wandered over to Shevlin Drive to see what looked like an interesting open house only to find that the famous garden was for sale. The house reminded me of Wurster’s modest little houses in Point Richmond. Simple and straightforward. I haven’t found out who designed the home, but it feels a little like Wurster’s mythical carpenter with good taste might have been involved. Who ever created the house made it a neutral background for a stunning view of the Golden Gate and what would later become one of California’s most interesting gardens. Apparently Harris renovated aspects of the house and garden but sold it in 2008 when she moved to the Inland Empire (where she is at work on another garden).
Garden from the terrace
Once inside you are drawn to the light and the view. There is nothing to impede you. You stand on the terrace and overlook the steep garden out to the bay. The modest house is almost forgotten as you look for a path down to the mystery of succulents, flowers, and stone. Or what appears at first glance to be stone. Indeed the garden was shaped by concrete that Hand mixed himself. There are paths, walls, stepping-stones, benches, and everywhere, ponds. He wrote an article about his concrete garden, which appeared in Pacific Horticulture in 1976. Over the years, the plantings seem to merge with his very personal reference to the Sierras.
The garden is over a half acre and holds three thousand species. There was hot afternoon sun, and welcome shade, filtered light, and leaves that shimmered. All shades of green and occasional bursts of color and scent. Crisscrossing the hillside until reaching “the cliff” and then finding a spot to have a rest, I couldn’t stop thinking of all the work that Hand, and later Harris, put into this. It is a kind of meditation or prayer. A joining of nature, design, and faith.
There is a wonderful website created by Marjory Harris devoted to Harland Hand and his garden at www.harlandhandgarden.com.
If you are interested in the property, go to the realtor’s website at www.theharlandhandgarden.com.
