A Naturally Beautiful Landscape on Martha’s Vineyard

Throughout the property, the sound of trickling water sets the stage. Near the home’s front door, the designers reengineered a pair of existing troughs to overflow into basins nestled into bluestone. Wayfinding lights illuminate billowing perennial gardens.

To take full advantage of wind movement through the landscape, tall ornamental grasses line a double border punctuated by liatris, Russian sage, hydrangea, and phlox not far from the home’s front door.

For the pathway to the pool house, James Doyle Design Associates chose Mountain Smoke marble to accent gravel that’s punctuated by a pair of stewartia trees wading in clusters of sedges.

Near the pool house, a trickle of water springs from a large stone and flows through a stainless-steel scupper into a shallow water feature.

Simple yet dramatic, the custom fountain is the focal point of a gravel garden enhanced with salt-tolerant fescue, sesleria, and armeria.

Glass doors in the pool house slide open to connect a dining area to the new swimming pool and provide views of the dramatic grasslands and cove beyond.

Visible from the house, a lawn area that sweeps around grasslands enhances the contours of the land.

Custom granite posts and wire mesh pool fencing withstand salt spray without detracting from the view.

Accented by a dragonfly sculpture by New Zealand artist Mark Hill, a restored meadow on the waterside edge of the property was cleared of invasive plants and planted instead with grasses and meadow performers to preserve biodiversity.

Distill Martha’s Vineyard into two prevailing forces of nature, and they would be water and wind. In 2018, when asked to create a twelve-acre landscape around a client’s newly renovated home, James Doyle Design Associates delved deep into those signature facets of the island. Rather than reach outside the venue, the Doyle team brought the essential beauty of place to the fore, focusing on plants that ripple when caressed by the wind, and modern, elevated fountain rills that celebrate the sound of flowing water beside a pool that reflects the moody marbled skies above. From the arrival experience onward, this Vineyard house feels like a medley of every essential element we love about summer by the sea.

At the top of the agenda was a seamless merger between Victoria Hagan’s insightful interior design and the exterior site. “Inside and outside had to speak to each other thoughtfully,” says JDDA founding principal James Doyle, referencing the close collaboration—metaphorically and physically—between Hagan and his team, headed by landscape architect Heather Harris (currently at landscape architecture firm STIMSON).

That same unified perspective also informed the relationship between property and place. Overlooking a cove, the site brings the waltz between water and earth to the foreground with clustered courtyard plantings punctuated by gravel. Designing a landscape that would slip seamlessly into its scene was a challenge that Doyle embraced. “It seemed like a light hand was the best approach,” he says of the meadow-rich, ornamental-grass-infused plantings.

Geometry also comes into play. Not only do bluestone blocks and pathways—skillfully installed by landscape contractor R. P. Marzilli—ease the angles between buildings, but trees also give verticality to structures that are strongly linear. Connecting spaces are hemmed in textural plantings lush with grass plumes and island-stress survivors like liatris, echinacea, yarrow, Russian sage, eryngium, and geraniums. Along the regulated wetland edge, the designers removed and substituted invasives with native grasses and meadow plants to enhance biodiversity. A modest lawn leads to a grove of existing trees made more expressive by thoughtful sculpting.

In any landscape, pool fences are a challenge, and the dilemma is particularly difficult when the surrounding view is spectacular. JDDA found fence posts that echo the stonework on-site to support a nearly invisible fence. Throughout, stone surfaces were given purposeful finishes, from the slip-proof poolside deck to the flip-flop-friendly walkways. Similarly, every garden “room” brings the site’s structures into a more meaningful dialogue. Together, the entire site exudes a sense of place: Martha’s Vineyard comes home.

Project Team
Landscape design: James Doyle Design Associates
Landscape contractor: R.P. Marzilli
Interior design: Victoria Hagan
Renovation builder: The Lagassé Group