John Paul Philippe's White Hollow in Connecticut: 'Not Really a Garden at All"

The gardeners featured in Pastoral Gardens, a weighty new compendium that has been self-published by photographer Andrew Montgomery and garden editor Clare Foster, are mainly British. But when the pair crossed the Atlantic to document several East Coast landscapes designed by European superstars, they also took in White Hollow, a five-acre property in Litchfield County, Connecticut, owned and looked after by the artist John-Paul Philippe. The final landscape in the book, it is described by Foster as “not really a garden at all.”

Let’s take a look.

Photography by Andrew Montgomery.

Above: Philippe’s Appalachian cabin, reconstructed at the foot of the Berkshires in Connecticut.

Philippe’s home is a private landscape of edited native herbage. There are no ornamentals, though there is a vegetable garden, fenced off against deer and bears. The premise behind these five acres is that the land is already a garden, which just needs to be revealed. To this end, there are enchanting paths that were made by animals, and which Philippe has formalized by walking them daily. The wider paths are gently mowed.

Above: The small, early 19th-century building is rustic in the extreme.

The cabin was acquired almost 20 years ago from the singular ornithologist John McNeely. He interviewed prospective buyers to make sure that they had the right intentions, and he was convinced by Philippe, a New York artist with an Oklahoma accent, that it would not be ruined. White Hollow remains a garden-nature reserve; birds’ needs come first.

Above: A destination in a fuzzy garden, defined by grass paths through uncut vegetation.

The main cabin was originally spotted from the air, while McNeely was hang-gliding over the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. It may have faced an uncertain future all alone on Grandfather Mountain, so he arranged to have it transported and put back together on his private bird sanctuary in Connecticut. His pet condor accompanied him on these trips.

Above: Hen’s eggs are put out in the meadow, to attract larger birds, like a colony of ravens that breed on the mountain.

Philippe’s vernacular is distinctive. He builds with found materials; his aesthetic is somewhat Japanese. He has spent time in Japan, and lived in England for over 20 years, as part of the legendary Bonnington Square scene in South London. He and his neighbors (including landscape designer Dan Pearson and his partner Huw Morgan) gardened the Square and the illegally tenanted houses around it, turning the streets into a green utopia. He was also known in East Sussex, among legendary garden-makers such as Derek Jarman. All of which is to say, there is a strong garden sensibility in him.

The topography in these five acres is both dry and wet, and the plants at White Hollow grow accordingly. Writes Foster: “At the bottom of the meadow, the slightly damper area is marked by a line of big bluestem grass (Adropogon gerardii) that looks as though it could have been designed.”

Above: A curtain of wind chimes, made by artist Elvin Rodriguez.

It’s a quiet existence, which Philippe shares with fellow artist Elvin Rodriguez. Visitors don’t pull up and park in front of the house; they leave their vehicles behind and walk. All animal life is here. In the book, Philippe tells a story of a bear encounter: “I was sitting on the porch eating a peanut butter sandwich and I saw something in the periphery of my vision,” he recalls. “It was a huge bear paw waving at me, telling me to get out of the way.” Philippe moved quietly as the bear un-aggressively helped himself.