HUCKLEBERRY PERCH

VINEYARD HAVEN, MASSACHUSETTS

HUCKLEBERRY PERCH

VINEYARD HAVEN, MASSACHUSETTS

A rare hilltop home on Martha’s Vineyard celebrates expansive views framed by a dynamic, successional landscape for a dedicated homeowner with life-long connections to the site. Drawing inspiration from the Island’s vibrant native plant communities, the garden at Huckleberry Perch is situated purposefully where art and science intersect, as plants and vital site ecologies become fully intertwined. Durable plant palettes inspired by adjacent stands of mature trees, sandplain shrub colonies, and agrarian grasslands contribute to the garden’s resiliency while creating diverse ecotonal conditions that enhance biodiversity.

Huckleberry Perch sits at the military crest of an unnamed hill in West Tisbury, carved out of a dense pitch pine and white oak forest. The primary goal of the project was to develop strategies to situate the new home within the continuum of the landscape, bridging the expanse between building and woodland with a robust, multi-seasonal garden intended for long-term durability and high habitat value. To that end, the garden was designed to mature into a low-water and low-maintenance complex of native shrubland and successional grassland, lightly managed over time to preserve existing long views to the ocean and short views into the surrounding woodland without requiring additional disturbance. Long views to Vineyard Haven Harbor are framed by sculptural trunks of mature white oaks and American beech.

The hillside site presented significant grading challenges. Slopes approaching 2:1 are held in place by biodegradable coir erosion control fabrics and adaptively robust plantings that slow stormwater runoff and allow water to infiltrate into the site’s sandy soils. This new context allowed our team to embrace a wild and woolly garden composed of native shrubs and grasses, a complement to the crisp wood and glass of the modern house. Retaining walls, staircases, walkways, and patios of reclaimed granite thread the landscape, connected by mown and mulched paths that meander throughout the site. Large colonies of bayberry, huckleberry, winterberry, staghorn sumac, and sweetfern form the garden’s backbone, while drifts of Virginia rose, little bluestem, purple love grass, and Indian grass form dense thickets that provide important habitat and multi-seasonal interest. Tall prairie forbs like tall coneflower and ironweed set off the summer landscape, while beetlebung and sweetbay magnolia establish an internal canopy that channels views on and off site.

These new plant communities have been greatly aided in their early growth stages by the attention of an active and invested client who monitors his property, removing invasive seedlings as they spring up, and recording the presence of pests and diseases. Having grown up foraging the site and desiring a productive garden, his efforts are rewarded with successive crops of blueberry, huckleberry, and beach plum. Designed with human and non-human browsers alike in mind, the landscape is resilient in the face of the grazing habits of the island’s large deer, turkey, and rabbit populations. An expansive suite of fruiting and seeding plants host a plethora of birds and insects, and the ecotone between forest and grassland provides crucial hunting grounds for raptors. From disturbance comes a thriving, harmonious system—a truly active landscape.

Collaborators: R+D Studio, Stedman Construction, Nina Farmer Interiors, Contemporary Landscapes, Island Stone and Granite, Michael J. Lee Photography