The Bottle Houses, Prince Edward Island

The use of glass in the landscape is something that has interested me for some time, and is something I hope to incorporate into one of my stone projects at some stage. It is buildings like these bottle houses below that make me want to try it out for myself. What an amazing place it is. And as with all inspiring places lies a compelling story of a innovative mind with a creative dream.
 

The Bottle Houses are located at Cap-Egmont, Prince Edward Island, on the gorgeous east coast of Canada. They were built by the late Édouard T. Arsenault.

In 1979 Édouard received a postcard from his daughter of a glass bottle castle she had visited on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, he was so captivated by it, that he was instantly inspired to make his own glass bottle creation. 

Édouard T. Arsenault

That same summer, he started collecting bottles from his community, from a local restaurant, community dance halls, friends, relatives and neighbours. He spent the winter in the basement of his home, cleaning bottles, removing labels and dreaming of his project. In the spring of 1980, at the age of 66, he began construction of his pet project, not quite sure where it was going to take him. As his six-gabled structure was taking form, visitors started coming in. Impressed by his work, they encouraged him to continue and to advertise it as a tourist attraction. And so, in 1981, the first Bottle House was open to the public.

From 1980 to the spring of 1984, he cleverly cemented over 25,000 bottles of various shapes, sizes and colours, into three fantasy-like buildings.

 
Six Gabled House

 

The first bottle house was built in 1980 out of approximately 12,000 bottles, measuring 20 feet x 14 feet with three main sections. Its six gables and the patterns produced by the careful choosing of colours and sizes of bottles truly makes this a unique building. Mr. Arsenault would cement between 300 and 400 bottles per row, using a total of approximately 85 bags of cement over a six month period.

The Round Tavern

 

In 1982, Édouard decided to try his luck at a second building, using approximately 8,000 bottles this time. This tavern-like hexagonal structure was originally used to house the attraction's souvenirs and handcrafted items made by his wife Rosina. Today the tavern houses a large selection of interesting bottles collected by Edouard. Whenever he came across a bottle that had a special feature, he preferred to keep it for display rather than using it in the construction. 

The Chapel

 

The third building constructed by the late Édouard Arsenault is truly a work of art. Approximately 10,000 bottles were transformed in 1983 to become a magnificent little chapel, complete with pews and altar. At the time of his sudden death at the age of 70, in the spring of 1984, Mr. Arsenault still had a bit of work to do, he intended to make the steeples higher and the front pew was not quite completed. At sunset, a symphony of light and colours streams in from behind the altar.

 

Rebuilding Works

Unfortunately, Prince Edward Island’s winters are not very gentle. The railway ties used as foundations did not withstand the effects of the bad winter frosts. Over the years, the buildings deteriorated to the point that they had to be rebuilt.

Between 1992 to 1998, the original buildings were photographed from all angles, carefully measured and then brought down by hand, recovering the glass bottles from the mortar. Four foot foundations were then laid before local bricklayers carefully reconstructed the buildings, using the same bottles as in the original structures and following the same basic designs. The roof and the central cylinder of the second building are the only components that were maintained in their original form.

Altogether over 25 000 recycled bottles were ingeniously cemented together to create the Bottle Houses. The houses are nestled in a number of mature gardens originally created by Édouard. He built the stonework and developed the flower gardens surrounding the buildings at the beginning of his retirement years in 1974.

Étienne Gallant at work
on the large bottle

The stones were picked locally by him and put together to create a peaceful setting for the gardens surrounding the houses that were to be built later. A keen gardener, he also planted all the trees on the property and enjoyed growing a wide variety of perennials and annuals. The present owner, his daughter Réjeanne, also enjoys this task from year to year, with the help of her son Étienne Gallant who also designed and built a large bottle near the road. This new thirteen feet high structure required 2,000 bottles.

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I still have much to discuss on the topic of recycled glass in the garden, but this is a post for another day. If you would like to see more bottle houses check out this link http://www.agilitynut.com/h/otherbh.html lots more wacky bottle creations to be found there.  The photos for this post are from the bottle house website (used with their kind permission of course) Be sure to check out their website for more information and photos. http://www.bottlehouses.com/

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Theater in the garden

Garden Theatres

Although there are many grand Garden Theatres and huge impressive amphitheatres out there in the world, they are not something you find very often in normal residential garden design. They are however, something I like very much. So I will leave the many grand garden theatres and the huge impressive amphitheatres for another post for another day.

Today I am going to talk about the intimate and sometimes modest (but just as effective) garden theatre.  

Bonfire Garden, Hagal Farm

Growing up on my parents farm in West Cork, we had a garden stage, but as you can seen in the picture across, it is now quite overgrown and a little neglected (although this in itself gives it a certain charm)

The stage made up part of a bonfire garden and back in the day, there was many a party held here.

West Cork is well known for being full of fine food and culture, so back then there was no shortage of  fine musicians to prop up on the stage (these would often overflow onto the simple timber seating that surround the fire pit). To the left of the stage was a round concrete pad reserved for dancing.

At night the garden would take on a very different atmosphere, as you went from being in an open outdoor garden into what seemed like an intimate enclosed space. One got this sense of enclosure as the light from the fire illuminated the trees that surrounded and arched over the entire area, hiding all that lay beyond.

   

A lovely garden theater at the Everglades Gardens, Leura, Australia.

I also love this garden theatre I came across in the Everglades Gardens in Leura, set in the amazing surroundings of the Blue Mountains in Australia.

The golden pyrmont sandstone arch which forms the dramatic backdrop to the stage was originally the recessed entrance to the London Chartered Bank of Australia on Sydney’s George Street. The arch is flanked by tall hedges clipped formally to form the wings of the stage.

Author Shawna Lee Coronado's Garden Stage

Another one I like for its sheer simplicity and functionality is this one by author Shawna Coronado. On her blog ‘The Casual Gardener’ she wrote about how the answer to her garden dilemma was resolved by creating this lovely little garden stage.

It is also a great example of how you can create an interesting garden feature on a small budget.

When having a rainwater collection system installed in her garden, she was left with a huge mound of soil from when they dug the hole for the tank, and of course this soil had to go somewhere! She did not want it to go to landfill so she decided to make a feature out of it. Even on a tight budget she managed to create a lovely little feature out of it. The four large tiles make up the stage, which regularly features her 10 year old daughter performing her latest stage show. It is also a spot where a musician might perform during a garden party. You can see her post about this here http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com/2010/12/how-i-transformed-mound-of-dirt-into.html

Mainly because of my passion for stone, one of my favourites is this here, at Dick Schwab’s Celebration Barn near Solon in Iowa.
This amazing amphitheatre has an impressive dry stone arch, built with Anamosa Limestone from near Stone City, and has an impressive internal radius of 16ft (4.8m) weighing in at about 65 tons.

 The celebration barn often hosts weddings, the ceremonies often held underneath the mighty arch.

The stone arch and amphitheater at the Celebration Barn, Solon, Iowa. Photo by Eric Whittlesey

The arch and amphitheatre were built by ‘Country Stone Masons’. Fellow Stone Foundation member Eric Whittlesey who works for ‘Country Stone Masons’ told me a bit about the construction process, and was nice enough to share these photos as well.

Photo by Eric Whittlesey

The curved seating of the ampitheatre itself is also made with Anamosa Limestone, each stone meticulously chiselled to fit tightly to its neighbour. The area can seat over 300 people.

Photo by Eric Whittlesey

Photo by Eric Whittlesey

All 68 stones that make up the arch, some weighing as much as 1.5tons, had to be painstakingly carved into the angle of the arch.

On of the most fascinating thing about stone arches is the physics behind them, and the fact that the procedure to build them has hardly changed since Roman times back in the 10^th century.

The shear downward force of weight (all 65 tons of it) combined with the angles of the wedge shaped stones or ‘voussoirs’ means that the stones are almost welded together, evenly spreading the weight down both sides. 

For these reasons the arch does not require any mortar to hold it together, however for peace of mind the stones were pinned together so that the masons could sleep soundly without having any nightmares about brides tragically being crushed by stones on their wedding day! 

Completed arch with form still in place. Photo by Eric Whittlesey

For the form that supported the arch as they built it, they used massive cotton wood timbers, which were stacked on top of each other as the build progressed. Then when the key stone was set in place, the most anticipated part of the build could be performed, this of course being the removal of the support form. I remember removing the form from the first large arch I built. As I was pulling it out, my brain kept telling me 'Of course it will stay up, there is absolutely nowhere it can go’  however its still a nerve-racking moment!

The stone arch and amphitheater at the Celebration Barn, Solon, Iowa. Photo by Eric Whittlesey

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Everglades Gardens at Leura

A few months ago, I was asked fellow garden blogger Britt Conley from the Photo Garden Bee to partake in a photo meme. For the post I chose a photo I took at the Everglades Gardens set in the Blue Mountains at Leura, Australia. Picking this photo (below) made me want to write a post about the gardens themselves, so that is what I am going to do now.

Everglades is one of Australia’s foremost heritage gardens. This treasure from the 1930s sits in twelve and a half acres of European-style gardens and native Australian bush with breathtaking views over the Jamison Valley in the World Heritage listed Blue Mountains in New South Wales, Australia.

View from lookout

 The site purchased by Henri Van de Velde in 1932 had been left to run wild since 1910, when Mrs Stonier’s eight acres of orchard were ravaged by bushfire. The site sloped steeply, with a one in two gradient in places. Beyond the orchard, a further five acres of natural bushland fell away with precipitous drops to the Jamison Valley and Gordon Falls far below.

The site was rocky, formed from Triassic sandstone rich in the iron oxide which coloured it with dark red and purple bands. Sandwiched between the ironstone, much softer layers of sandstone eroded at a faster rate over the millennia, leaving a rock face deeply etched with curving hollows and stripes. The earth was thin and sandy, poor in nutrients and full of ironstone fragments (resulting in fantastic rock formations like the photo from my photo meme and the one below).

Architect Paul Sorensen overcame the lack of fertile soil by hand digging areas for planting to a depth of 600-900mm. Soil excavated from what was to become the Grotto Pool was distributed to garden beds and enriched with humus. Ironstone was removed and graded according to quality and colour. The best pieces were used to create the massive, drystone walls which are a main feature of the garden, while those of a lesser quality were used for packing and filling.

The Grotto Pool

To make the site accessible and suitable for planting, Sorensen followed the European tradition of forming massive ‘platforms’ to civilise the landscape with a series of terraces formed and kept in place by the ironstone walls. The physical labour required to create the walls and planting areas was daunting. There was no heavy machinery available in those days, and few skilled tradesmen. Australia was, however, still in the grip of the Great Depression. There were plenty of able-bodied men who were glad of the opportunity for work

Fourteen stonemasons at a time were employed to construct the walls which snake along the lookout above the Gordon Falls and delineate the terraces. While stretches of wall may have been built using relatively unskilled labour, the hand of highly skilled stonemasons is evident in features such as the perfectly rounded, barrel-ended walls leading up from the Studio Terrace, and the neatly made weep-holes and apertures for taps seen on the Cherry Terrace.

Walls of the lookout

Besides all the wonderful stonework two other features that stand out in my mind, are the Garden Theatre and the many wood carvings around the gardens.

The Garden Theatre

The Garden Theatre at Everglades is recessed off the left side of the Studio Terrace looking towards the view. The golden pyrmont sandstone arch which forms the dramatic backdrop to the stage was originally the recessed entrance to the London Chartered Bank of Australia on Sydney’s George Street. The arch is flanked by tall hedges clipped formally to form the wings of the stage. The stage is a major focus for the cultural and community entertainments -including weddings -which bring many thousands of visitors to Everglades each year.

 Syrian born landscape architect, Fred Alwahan, created many sculptures for Everglades and a new life for the limbs of many dead trees.

Information and a few photos from the Everglades Gardens Website http://www.everglades.org.au/

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The Shell House at Ballymaloe Cookery School

For anyone passing through Co. Cork, in Ireland who has a love for fantastic food and beautiful gardens with all sorts of hidden gems, a visit to Ballymaloe is an absolute must.

Ballymaloe house and gardens are nestled in a 400 acre estate that dates back to the early 1800’s in the rural setting of Shanagarry, East Cork. Alongside this renowned Irish country house hotel and restaurant owned and run by the Allen family for over 40 years is there famous cookery school and gardens. It is here in one of the many individual gardens of Ballymaloe that you will find the Shell House.

As you enter the Shell House garden through the gate, a straight grass path leads towards the Shell House. At the far end of the of the herbaceous border is a deceptively simple little building with a slate roof and gothic windows. When you enter it will take a moment for your eyes to adjust to the light, you then begin to realise that the exterior was indeed a deceptive, careful ploy. The walls, window sills and ceiling are encrusted with a myriad of shells. In the centre of the pebble studded floor is a circular pool of shallow clear water. This extraordinarily beautiful Shell house was Darina Allen’s idea, a surprise present for her husband Tim.

                                                  Inside the shell house
The interior of the shell house was created by the fantastic award winning shell artist Blott Kerr-Wilson in July 1995 and was completed on the 26th of October. The day before Darina and Tim celebrated their silver wedding anniversary.

During the construction

The shells that were used in the creation of this house came from many different sources. Darina had been collecting shells for many years with a vague idea of building a folly. Blott brought some shells with her and more were given as gifts when people heard about the project. Gazing upwards to the ceiling, you will notice how scallops and mussels, laid rank upon rank, increasing in size give the illusion of more light. Every shell used in the roof once encased a mussel or scallop that was consumed at Ballymaloe House or at the Ballymaloe Cookery School.

Ceiling of the shell house, complete with shell chandelier

Tim and Darina designed the building themselves. Tim wanted a very classical building with something completely different hidden inside to amaze and delight when you step across the threshold. Blotts own inspiration for her design came from the time she spent at the Alhambra palace in Granada.

Closeups of various details on the walls

When creating her designs, she would work out the patterns in her head and then sketch the ideas onto the wall with chalk, and she would then cement the shells on. Although Blott like to work at night, she was rarely alone. There was always someone around to watch in wonderment at the work that was progressing. An article from Gardens illustrated, wrights that, soon after Blott began work on the shell house, the school holidays began, and hordes of children descended on Ballymaloe, as her work never ceased to interest and amuse them. In the article, Blott tells “I love to work at night and they would sneak out in their pyjamas, and cycle to the field where I was working. It was just like E.T. I would see the lights of their bicycles lined up outside the shell house and hear them whispering “Shh, Shh” very loudly”

                                Closeup of shell chandelier

Another visitor who came often to review the progress was Tim's father the late Ivan Allen. He gave Blott the inspiration to turn the window sills into seat because when he would come he would sit on the sills and from there he was able to admire the emerging patterns as they were created whilst he was seated.

Sill seat for Ivan. It’s design partly accredited by the shells eaten the day before.

Ballymaloe house and gardens are a magical place, the shell house being no exception. The gardens are open to the public all year round, so do go and see it for yourself, as the memory will stay with you for years to come. Check out their website for more information http://cookingisfun.ie/

For all of those who admire Blotts amazing shell art, you can find more examples of her works on her website
http://www.blottshellhouses.com/index.html

Thanks to Blott and the Allen family for their kind permission for the use of Photographs and information from there lovely websites.

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