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P O R T R A I T M A X B U R K H A L T E R . A R T D I R E C T I O N M I C H E L L E A V I Ñ A How a Maestro Gardener Came to Houston: Pages from Carol Barden's Diary Like Frank Lloyd Wright, Houston-based Carol Isaak Barden wanted the house-cum-art repository that she was developing for private dream clients to be a gesamtkunstwerk. It would be the most epic home ever undertaken by her eponymous firm. Wrapping this fall, after almost five years from concept to move in, its assured, dramatic and lyrical design by Seattle- based Sundberg Kennedy Ly-Au Young Architects demanded more than mere shrubbery and a side of azaleas. Barden looked beyond Houston, seeking a landscape talent who would be the match for the art house that was taking shape down a cosseted, secluded street west of Memorial Park. Only a designer of refinement and understatement would do — one who could tame nature's bounty with a nuanced formality matching the handsome home with its imposing geometric strength and order, softened by a reverence for natural, straight-forward materials. The art house demanded an art garden. Barden shared some of her notes from her two-plus years intermittently in the garden with Giubbilei. The idea for the commission began with a volume. "I was knocked sideways when I discovered Luciano's book (The Gardens of Luciano Giubbilei, Merrell, 2010)," she says. "I had never seen such precise layouts. The gardens were relatively simple with endless rows of identical trees and thick lush hedges. The priorities of his gardens were clearly proportion, elegance and quality of materials … His perfect trees fascinated me. The canopies and trunks were all identical and the precision and rhythm of his gardens was amazing. His lighting was also just right and so dramatic. It was subtle (not like the loud sparkly outdoor light that resembles an airport runway), yet beautiful." "Within a matter of hours flipping through the book's pages, I was captivated," Barden says. Phone calls and emails were exchanged; an introduction to her clients and a trip to Houston was arranged. She soon would have first-hand experience of Giubbilei's meticulous, extreme and hands- on process, which would lead to his fifth American garden, and first in Texas. Barden, who grew up in Seattle with an antenna set to nature, immediately discovered Giubbilei was as passionate about trees as she was. "I had the shock of my life when I discovered how Luciano selects trees," she says. "He insists on personally seeing each tree. As he was slightly crazy about his exacting standards of tree purchasing, he was always hopscotching around the country, visiting nurseries and choosing the most perfect specimens. Trees for this particular garden were selected and grown for two years before arriving in Houston … When the trees arrived on site, Luciano was on his phone [FaceTime from London], watching the entire procedure, approving placement, checking that the most beautiful part of the tree, the face, was showing." Like a Matisse drawing, no stray natural element was allowed to mar the carefully choreographed green space. The maintenance of the garden was militaristically prescribed. After exhaustive research and interviews, Kevin Gruber of F&G Landscape in Bellaire, was selected as the installer of the garden, which also involved the science of pruning under the directorship of Giubbilei. F&G's hedge trimmers are "even outfitted with engineering tools and snap lines to insure a sharp, clean edge," Barden pointed out during a recent walkthrough of the nearly completed garden. Aligning one flank of the house, an army of men in brown uniforms wield survey tools, assiduously pruning boxwood and yew hedges into staggered, calibrated heights. Giubbilei's Houston commission can only be described as a living outdoor stage set that reverberates with intelligence and importance, informed by a whisper of fantasy bordering on the surreal. "There is an uncluttered purity to a Luciano garden," says Barden, who was amazed at the designer's fortitude and zeal for taking on a new horticultural challenge. "He would fly [almost monthly] from London, shower and go straight to THE GARDENS OF LUCIANO GIUBBILEI I talian-born, London-based Luciano Giubbilei is a three-time grand champion, winner of the most prestigious garden competition in the world, the Chelsea Flower Show in London — an honor tantamount to winning an Academy Award. With projects around the universe (something a Chelsea Flower Show champion tends to garner), he recently designed his first Texas garden — and his only tropical creation to date: a commission for the new home of an intensely private art-collecting Houston couple. Carol Isaak Barden, a developer (but not in the ordinary sense), has brought in architects such as François de Menil and Sundberg Kennedy Ly-Au Young Architects from Seattle, for her projects. She sought out Giubbilei and introduced him to his Houston patrons for the sheer reason that someone in this city with an elevated taste level needed to own a Giubbilei garden. Barden and the designer talk light and shadow, Morocco and Siena with Catherine D. Anspon. EARTH MAN of the