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Peter Marino is one of the great American architects of our times, known for his sleek yet opulent contemporary designs. He’s created a modern addition to New York’s iconic Four Seasons Hotel, and built a host of fashion flagships. But what many people may not know is that Marino is also extremely interested in landscape architecture.
The gardens of Marino’s Hamptons home provide ample evidence of just that. “I have this Alice in Wonderland idea in my head that a garden should be a place of wonderment,” Marino says in the introduction of a new book out from Rizzoli, which takes an in-depth look at his sprawling property. “The French use gardens to show grandeur and the English to show how things have endured for hundreds of years, but for me they’re all about fantasy.”
Even a cursory glance around the grounds proves that fantasy is indeed in the air, but for the architect, a mix of order and chaos also came to encapsulate his garden. “We have a thousand hydrangea plants bordering the house and they were all supposed to be pink, but a handful of them keep turning purple,” Marino explains in the book. “What you learn is that you can’t control everything! And invariably, the most interesting parts of the garden are the accidents, the bits that don’t conform to a plan.”
Above, a look inside Peter Marino’s private Hamptons gardens.
The Garden of Peter Marino (Rizzoli), by Peter Marino, photographed by Jason Schmidt and Manolo Yllera, is out this week.
