Sleep Cat Farm

Paul Brothe a month ago

This is rarely open to the public. The Garden Conservancy sponsors weekends where the public is invited. The cost when we went was $10 per person. Parking is at a nearby school with frequent shuttle buses to the garden. The entrance is up a winding driveway, past manicured hedges accented with statues. The pool area is to the side of the house and features wooden Versailles planters containing tree hydrangeas. Immediately behind the house is a neatly trimmed box garden in an intricate pattern with a statue in the middle. Bird houses dot the property. The first to be seen is by the rear of the house. The lawn sweeps down to a small octagonal folly perched on a rise. The garden meanders. Every corner one turns there is a surprise. Statues throughout, a grotto, streams, fountains, a screened in pavilion, an orchard, an Iris glade - traversed across by a unique Japanese bridge, prayer wheels, and a pond with an oriental gazebo. The pond teems with enormous koi. There is a beautiful Norman style buildings called the barn, an elaborate vegetable garden, and serpentine hedges, clipped to perfection, enclosing a 75 foot lap pool. A graduated stone staircase ascends the steep rise back t