Home & Design

Country in the City

Chapel Valley Landscape Company, Woodbine, Maryland, Award of Distinction,
Total Residential Contracting

Country in the City


Paths meander through this three-acre Georgetown garden,
along a six-foot boxwood hedge. The property is perfect for
entertaining, with its terraces, pool and hot tub and expansive lawn.

A secret garden of tradition, style and elegance lies behind the imposing brick façade of this Georgetown residence. A graceful limestone circular staircase, adorned with roses and camellias in the middle, leads down to the brick city sidewalk. The front plantings had to be approved by the Georgetown Historical Society and the Fine Arts Commission, so they’re what you might see elsewhere in that part of town: skip and cherry laurel, American beech trees and a tall aerial screen of hedge maples that runs down one side of the driveway.

Landscape architect Sunny Jung Scully of Lewis Scully Gionet, Inc., in Vienna, Virginia, designed the three-acre property. The landscaping was installed, over a period of one and a half years, by Chapel Valley Landscape Company.

The spacious garden is in the back of the house. It includes a swimming pool and hot tub, a pool terrace and pergola, a small basketball court, a cottage for the children and a huge lawn for entertaining. According to Chapel Valley project manager Chris Vedrani, the view from the terrace at the back of house is unique, particularly because of the steep drop to the street below. "It looks like you’re in the country," he said, "but in the backdrop you can see you’re really in the city."

The six-foot-high English boxwoods on the property—probably 500 or so in all—are "the oldest or second oldest English boxwood collection on the East coast," said Vedrani. Paths meander through the property, with the boxwoods on either side.

Because of the close proximity of neighbors, back yard plantings were designed to create privacy, along with color throughout the year—a hedge of southern magnolias, crape myrtles, ornamental grasses, azaleas, Japanese maples, hydrangeas, and lots of summer blooming perennials.

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