Go inside Martha's first-ever home, Turkey Hill, a farmhouse in Connecticut. Take a tour of the beautiful property here.
This historic 1892 farmhouse underwent a modern transformation. Seeing an inner beauty that begged to shine through.
I am so happy to share photos with you from my very special visit to my former Connecticut home. Over the weekend, I traveled about 30-minutes to nearby Westport and to Turkey Hill, the place I called home for more than 30-years. I was invited there to lead a tour and to speak at a
Go inside Martha's first-ever home, Turkey Hill, a farmhouse in Connecticut. Take a tour of the beautiful property here.
Martha celebrates the Connecticut home where she spent three decades cooking, creating gardens, writing and making memories.
Go inside Martha's first-ever home, Turkey Hill, a farmhouse in Connecticut. Take a tour of the beautiful property here.
Martha Stewart led an intimate tour of her former Westport, Connecticut home and gardens for a few of my friends this past weekend. From t...
Martha's garden at Turkey Hill remains, to this day, one of my favourite gardens of all time. While I never had the priviledge of seeing the property in person, it was extremely well documented in her magazines and on her television shows and I feel as though I have been there. Looking through some of the photographs of the Turkey Hill property recently, I began to see some lessons emerge - guidelines and philosophies for the gardener, expert or novice, to keep in mind while planning and tending her own garden. Below are ten lessons we can all learn from the gardens at Turkey Hill. ONE: THINK LIKE A PAINTER One of the things I've always loved about the Turkey Hill garden is how painterly it is. I think Monet would have loved to paint here, finding just the right angle from which to view the garden's beauty. Martha has said that Turkey Hill was a personal garden, one that evolved over several decades. The painterly quality comes, I think, from Martha's need to plant the things she loves the most and then finding just the right spot for those specimens. Colour and texture are considered. Varying heights and a mix of foliage keep the compositions interesting and 'negative space', such as pathways and lawns, give the eye a rest. In the photo above we see this painterly quality beautifully illustrated: a base of green dappled with brilliant pops of red and purple and pink; the light creates shadow and depth-of-field and the pathway guides the eye. TWO: INVEST IN WHAT YOU LOVE One of Martha's favourite flowers is the tree peony. It is not native to Connecticut. In fact, it is not native to North America at all. The tree peony originated in China, centuries ago, and was then introduced to Japan. Japanese varieties were the only ones available to the American market in the late 1970s but Martha was determined to grow them at Turkey Hill. A single specimen at the time could cost hundreds of dollars, because of their rarity. Martha was undaunted and made the investment, planting them in a mixed border in a partially-shaded location, shown above. She continued to grow tree peonies throughout her many years at Turkey Hill, adding new specimens in new colours, ensuring her garden contained examples of one of the flowers she loves the most. THREE: FRAME A GOOD VIEW No matter where you stood in the garden at Turkey Hill, it seems there was always a good view. Martha designed it that way and played up the views by framing various vignettes with arbors and pergolas that were laden with climbing roses. These 'frames' not only provided gateways into new, undiscovered areas of the garden for the visiting wanderer but also ensured that what was being viewed was seen through a defined aperture. In the photograph above, Martha's studio is beautifully framed by this arching arbor. It is echoed beyond by another identical arbor, which creates a sightline and a sense of symmetry. FOUR: READ, LEARN, GROW Martha designed her formal herb garden in the early 1980s. It arose out of a necessity to have herbs at the ready for her many catering projects. The design was adapted from a book called Herb Garden Design by Faith Swanson and Virginia Rady. One chapter in the book called Using Standards and Maypoles inspired Martha's layout. As you can see from the conceptual illustration of Martha's herb garden (top) it was intended to be extremely elaborate, enclosed by a stone wall. Martha did build the stone wall and planted the garden as planned. In later years, Martha conceded that the plan was too difficult to maintain and she scaled back the design to make it more streamlined and easier to care for. Martha did her research and compiled sources for inspiration. While the initial design may have been too ambitious, she tailored her expectations and made the garden workable for her needs. Never stop reading, learning or adapting. FIVE: CREATE A DESTINATION One of the first things Martha and Andy Stewart did when they purchased Turkey Hill was to install a pool. Far from the bright blue, kidney-shaped varieties you often see in backyards, Martha's was designed to look like a pond with its interior walls and floor painted black, initially, and then a deep shade of green. Over the years Martha built the space into a destination, a kind of 'garden room' where you could escape to. The unadorned lawn and the stone pathway leading to its entrance creates the effect that one is going somewhere special. The view is also partially obscured by the wisteria, creating a sense of enclosure and privacy. SIX: THINK SMALL Every space on the Turkey Hill property was considered, even the smallest corners. Oftentimes, the most diminutive spaces provide the most special compositions. Here, on the opposite side of the stone wall surrounding the pool, Martha planted a border of muscari, ferns and daffodils for early spring. The border is edged with old brick. I love the graduating levels of height and the mix of textures. It is a microcosm that is filled with its own breadth of life and colour. SEVEN: ADD STRUCTURE This old white picket gate leads from the pool to the orchard beyond. Flanked by rose bushes, it offers a nod to the English countryside. This gate was eventually replaced with a more modern design but it provides a sense of linear structure to an otherwise freeform garden, much the same way the stone walls do. Martha later added many tuteurs that were painted a deep shade of gray-green and placed them throughout the garden beds. They acted as structural columns that provided linear guidance for the eye. EIGHT: DISCOVER THE SHADE It was only in the late 1980s that Martha decided to landscape the east side of her property, which was extremely shady. Martha had initially left this part of her yard as lawn but later discovered numerous shade-loving plants. Martha endeavored to create a woodland garden with a winding pathway through the trees and garden beds snaking through the tree trunks. It was one of my favourite parts of the Turkey Hill property because of its cool, sun-dappled atmosphere. Filled with ferns, hostas and other shade-loving plants, it was a verdant place with a magic all its own. NINE: PLANT FOR A HARVEST Not every gardener will want to have a vegetable garden, but how nice it must be to step outside your kitchen door and harvest your own lettuce, tomatoes, cuccumbers, carrots and kale. Martha is shown in the photo, above, tilling the vegetable garden at Turkey Hill in the early 1970s. A vegetable garden was essential for Martha's catering business and she grew everything she needed, including asparagus, brussels sprouts, numerous varieties of squash, various leafy-green vegetables and much more. There was also an orchard on the property with apples, pears and plums, and a berry-bush grove where she grew raspberries, blackberries and strawberries. TEN: ROTATE YOUR CROPS The photo above, taken in 2003, is one of the last photographs of Turkey Hill under Martha's stewardship. As you can see, Martha's original vegetable garden, which was initially in this location and shown in the photo prior to this one, is no longer there. Martha moved the vegetable garden to another part of the property and replanted this area with a vast cutting garden, shown here. Rotating your crops reinvigorates the soil and curtails the growth of microscopic pathogens and parasites. The maturity of the Turkey Hill gardens meant that crop rotation was necessary to keep the soil rich and fertile. The results, as you can see, were highly successful!
This historic 1892 farmhouse underwent a modern transformation. Seeing an inner beauty that begged to shine through.
Go inside Martha's first-ever home, Turkey Hill, a farmhouse in Connecticut. Take a tour of the beautiful property here.
Go inside Martha's first-ever home, Turkey Hill, a farmhouse in Connecticut. Take a tour of the beautiful property here.
Go inside Martha's first-ever home, Turkey Hill, a farmhouse in Connecticut. Take a tour of the beautiful property here.
Martha's garden at Turkey Hill remains, to this day, one of my favourite gardens of all time. While I never had the priviledge of seeing the property in person, it was extremely well documented in her magazines and on her television shows and I feel as though I have been there. Looking through some of the photographs of the Turkey Hill property recently, I began to see some lessons emerge - guidelines and philosophies for the gardener, expert or novice, to keep in mind while planning and tending her own garden. Below are ten lessons we can all learn from the gardens at Turkey Hill. ONE: THINK LIKE A PAINTER One of the things I've always loved about the Turkey Hill garden is how painterly it is. I think Monet would have loved to paint here, finding just the right angle from which to view the garden's beauty. Martha has said that Turkey Hill was a personal garden, one that evolved over several decades. The painterly quality comes, I think, from Martha's need to plant the things she loves the most and then finding just the right spot for those specimens. Colour and texture are considered. Varying heights and a mix of foliage keep the compositions interesting and 'negative space', such as pathways and lawns, give the eye a rest. In the photo above we see this painterly quality beautifully illustrated: a base of green dappled with brilliant pops of red and purple and pink; the light creates shadow and depth-of-field and the pathway guides the eye. TWO: INVEST IN WHAT YOU LOVE One of Martha's favourite flowers is the tree peony. It is not native to Connecticut. In fact, it is not native to North America at all. The tree peony originated in China, centuries ago, and was then introduced to Japan. Japanese varieties were the only ones available to the American market in the late 1970s but Martha was determined to grow them at Turkey Hill. A single specimen at the time could cost hundreds of dollars, because of their rarity. Martha was undaunted and made the investment, planting them in a mixed border in a partially-shaded location, shown above. She continued to grow tree peonies throughout her many years at Turkey Hill, adding new specimens in new colours, ensuring her garden contained examples of one of the flowers she loves the most. THREE: FRAME A GOOD VIEW No matter where you stood in the garden at Turkey Hill, it seems there was always a good view. Martha designed it that way and played up the views by framing various vignettes with arbors and pergolas that were laden with climbing roses. These 'frames' not only provided gateways into new, undiscovered areas of the garden for the visiting wanderer but also ensured that what was being viewed was seen through a defined aperture. In the photograph above, Martha's studio is beautifully framed by this arching arbor. It is echoed beyond by another identical arbor, which creates a sightline and a sense of symmetry. FOUR: READ, LEARN, GROW Martha designed her formal herb garden in the early 1980s. It arose out of a necessity to have herbs at the ready for her many catering projects. The design was adapted from a book called Herb Garden Design by Faith Swanson and Virginia Rady. One chapter in the book called Using Standards and Maypoles inspired Martha's layout. As you can see from the conceptual illustration of Martha's herb garden (top) it was intended to be extremely elaborate, enclosed by a stone wall. Martha did build the stone wall and planted the garden as planned. In later years, Martha conceded that the plan was too difficult to maintain and she scaled back the design to make it more streamlined and easier to care for. Martha did her research and compiled sources for inspiration. While the initial design may have been too ambitious, she tailored her expectations and made the garden workable for her needs. Never stop reading, learning or adapting. FIVE: CREATE A DESTINATION One of the first things Martha and Andy Stewart did when they purchased Turkey Hill was to install a pool. Far from the bright blue, kidney-shaped varieties you often see in backyards, Martha's was designed to look like a pond with its interior walls and floor painted black, initially, and then a deep shade of green. Over the years Martha built the space into a destination, a kind of 'garden room' where you could escape to. The unadorned lawn and the stone pathway leading to its entrance creates the effect that one is going somewhere special. The view is also partially obscured by the wisteria, creating a sense of enclosure and privacy. SIX: THINK SMALL Every space on the Turkey Hill property was considered, even the smallest corners. Oftentimes, the most diminutive spaces provide the most special compositions. Here, on the opposite side of the stone wall surrounding the pool, Martha planted a border of muscari, ferns and daffodils for early spring. The border is edged with old brick. I love the graduating levels of height and the mix of textures. It is a microcosm that is filled with its own breadth of life and colour. SEVEN: ADD STRUCTURE This old white picket gate leads from the pool to the orchard beyond. Flanked by rose bushes, it offers a nod to the English countryside. This gate was eventually replaced with a more modern design but it provides a sense of linear structure to an otherwise freeform garden, much the same way the stone walls do. Martha later added many tuteurs that were painted a deep shade of gray-green and placed them throughout the garden beds. They acted as structural columns that provided linear guidance for the eye. EIGHT: DISCOVER THE SHADE It was only in the late 1980s that Martha decided to landscape the east side of her property, which was extremely shady. Martha had initially left this part of her yard as lawn but later discovered numerous shade-loving plants. Martha endeavored to create a woodland garden with a winding pathway through the trees and garden beds snaking through the tree trunks. It was one of my favourite parts of the Turkey Hill property because of its cool, sun-dappled atmosphere. Filled with ferns, hostas and other shade-loving plants, it was a verdant place with a magic all its own. NINE: PLANT FOR A HARVEST Not every gardener will want to have a vegetable garden, but how nice it must be to step outside your kitchen door and harvest your own lettuce, tomatoes, cuccumbers, carrots and kale. Martha is shown in the photo, above, tilling the vegetable garden at Turkey Hill in the early 1970s. A vegetable garden was essential for Martha's catering business and she grew everything she needed, including asparagus, brussels sprouts, numerous varieties of squash, various leafy-green vegetables and much more. There was also an orchard on the property with apples, pears and plums, and a berry-bush grove where she grew raspberries, blackberries and strawberries. TEN: ROTATE YOUR CROPS The photo above, taken in 2003, is one of the last photographs of Turkey Hill under Martha's stewardship. As you can see, Martha's original vegetable garden, which was initially in this location and shown in the photo prior to this one, is no longer there. Martha moved the vegetable garden to another part of the property and replanted this area with a vast cutting garden, shown here. Rotating your crops reinvigorates the soil and curtails the growth of microscopic pathogens and parasites. The maturity of the Turkey Hill gardens meant that crop rotation was necessary to keep the soil rich and fertile. The results, as you can see, were highly successful!
On Thursday, June 1, 2023, Martha returned to Turkey Hill to host a tour of the garden and grounds that she so tirelessly sowed over the decades. The new owner of Turkey Hill, Casey Berg, is a member of the board of directors of an organization called Positive Directions, a non-profit behavioral health organization providing a continuum of prevention, counseling, and recovery supports to individuals and families struggling with mental health or substance use disorders. The group was founded over 50 years ago and today serves the towns of Fairfield, Weston, Norwalk and Westport, where it is based. Proceeds of the tickets sold for the tour supported Positive Directions, and 40 lucky people followed Martha through the grounds and gardens as she recounted memories and gave gardening advice. Below are photographs of the tour, kindly submitted by friends of mine who were lucky enough to attend. Martha began the tour in the barn - a large structure she built in the late 1970s to use as an entertaining space. Martha gave a slide slow with photographs of the garden through the years and discussed her book, "Martha Stewart's Gardening", which documents the planting and caring of this particular garden. The gardens today still look spectacular, wonderfully maintained by the new owners. My friend Jennifer Zimmerman got to spend a little bit of time with Martha on the patio during the cocktail hour. Jennifer also met with Kevin Sharkey, someone we have both admired for his decorating advice and style suggestions in the magazine over the years. The driveway gate that Martha designed several decades ago is still in operation at Turkey Hill. My friend Steven Thorne posed for this selfie with Martha on the patio. The barns and one of the garden sheds viewed from a distance across the lawn. A view of the pool, which Martha installed in 1980. Stone steps leading up from the pool to the glazed porch. A group of ten people who paid a little extra for their tickets were treated to a sit-down dinner with Martha and Kevin at a nearby restaurant after the tour. My friends Jeff, Jason and Carey were all in attendance. To learn more about Positive Directions and the excellent work they do, please click here. Thank you to Jennifer, Steven Thorne, Emily Sposetta, Jeff Schneider and Kemp Harper for the photographs.
It's the stuff that dreams are made of: touring Martha Stewart's first iconic home and garden with Martha herself! That dream came true for ...
Go inside Martha's first-ever home, Turkey Hill, a farmhouse in Connecticut. Take a tour of the beautiful property here.
Go inside Martha's first-ever home, Turkey Hill, a farmhouse in Connecticut. Take a tour of the beautiful property here.
I am so happy to share photos with you from my very special visit to my former Connecticut home. Over the weekend, I traveled about 30-minutes to nearby Westport and to Turkey Hill, the place I called home for more than 30-years. I was invited there to lead a tour and to speak at a
Photos of flowers, landscape designs and architecture from the famousTurkey Hill Farm in Westport, Connecticut made famous by Martha Stewart
CASEY AND CHUCK BERG bought this house on Turkey Hill from Martha Stewart in 2007 at the height of the teardown phenomenon. Already enamored of its fruit trees, its perennial gardens, its majestic beeches and its proximity to Westport’s town center, the couple made good on their quest to own it when their broker told...
I am so happy to share photos with you from my very special visit to my former Connecticut home. Over the weekend, I traveled about 30-minutes to nearby Westport and to Turkey Hill, the place I called home for more than 30-years. I was invited there to lead a tour and to speak at a
A Martha Moments reader wrote to me this morning to share a link that featured photographs of the newly renovated Turkey Hill, Martha's former home in Westport, Connecticut - the house where she began her catering business. The new owners of the property renovated the home extensively, connecting the main house to the carriage house with a series of new galleries and rooms, including a large family room. The second floor was also extended to include a lavish new master bedroom suite. The kitchen, study and bathrooms were all renovated and the dining room and parlour were extended to expand their square footage. The redesign was handled by John Fifield of FPF Architects in Fairfield, Connecticut. For the new owners, the aim was to keep the basic core of the home intact (knocking it down to start from scratch was not an option for them) and to build upon it in order to accommodate their family. Below are photographs of the new Turkey Hill, inside and out. This photo shows the extension on the back of the house, which now houses a large eat-in family room and a second staircase to access the second story, which was also extended. The original main house can be seen at right. To the far left, you will see the carriage house, which is now connected to the main house. New windows were added throughout the home. The main entrance was moved to the north side of the property. The original leaded-pane windows flanking the front door seem to have been salvaged from the former entrance. The second floor, as shown in this photo, also looks reconfigured from the original design. A completely new room: a combination eating area and family room that connects the main house to the former carriage house. A second staircase was also added here. The completely redesigned and renovated kitchen, which has a pass-through to the dining area and family room beyond. The dressing room of the master bedroom suite.
To any fan of Martha Stewart, the name "Turkey Hill" triggers instant recognition: damask setees on orange pine floors, gilded Federal style mirrors above a profusion of artfully arranged hydrangeas in crystal vases, warm, sunlit rooms that look over an expansive plot of happily-sown land. Turkey Hill was Martha's home between 1972 and 2003. More than this, it was the primary laboratory and idea-factory for her business and the muse for her creative and domestic vision. Few other homes in history have played such a significant role in the formation and development of a business. The Federal style home became a sort of "Graceland" to Martha's reading and viewing public over the years and functioned as the inspiration for many of Martha's books, magazines, television shows and products. The home sold to new owners for just over $4-million. Martha announced her departure from Westport in 2000 on somewhat bitter terms, leaving Turkey Hill unoccupied until her mother, Martha Kostyra, moved in a few years later. In a letter she wrote to the New York Times in 2000, Martha described how Westport had lost a lot of its charm and friendliness and noted that ongoing feuds with neighbors were getting her down. She wrote: "I've thought long and hard about the many changes in my life that have now forced me to seek home and comfort elsewhere. And I've concluded that they're not so odd, not so radical, not so personal – but certainly they are powerful enough to make me feel that I must leave, that I must go." At around the time the letter was written, Martha purchased a 153-acre farm estate in Katonah, New York, in the quaint and affluent community of Bedford, just north of New York City. The home, known locally as Cantitoe Corners, would become Martha's next renovation project and featured a 1925 farmhouse, a 1770 Colonial house, an 1897 tenant's cottage and several other buildings – all of which were consigned for Martha's special brand of renewal and regeneration. Martha in the kitchen she designed and built with her husband, Andy Stewart, in 1980. You can view the kitchen after its 1990s renovation below. Martha comes by this need to restore and beautify honestly. Ever since she first moved into Turkey Hill in 1972 with her then-husband, Andy Stewart, and their daughter, Alexis, its beautification was her singular aim. The couple paid only $81,000 for the house, which was in sad disrepair and a state of decay when they bought it. Built in 1805 by Captain Thorpe, an onion farmer and barge owner of some repute, the house sits on the highest hill in the Greens Farms neighborhood with spectacular views to the south. One can see Long Island Sound on a clear day. As part of Connecticut's 'Gold Coast' the area has become one of the most prestigious in the country, home to numerous celebrities, writers, artists and business moguls. But when Andy and Martha first glimpsed the property it was in shambles after 167 years of various owners and tenants. It had been rented for 50 years by the previous owners and very little had been done to preserve its historical integrity. Martha's sister Kathy describes going to visit Martha and Andy during the first few weeks after they had moved in: "We were going into this house thinking, 'My God, how are two people and a baby living in this chaos?' It was just a wreck of a house." There was no central heating, just a mish-mash collection of ruinous fireplaces scattered throughout the house. Faulty electricity and primitive plumbing (stone-filled, hand-dug wells) and two acres of overgrown and weedy land were just some of the obstacles that faced the Stewart homesteaders as they embarked on their restoration project. While various things had been added on to the house by the previous owners very little had been taken away, giving Martha a nearly clean slate upon which to plan the home's refurbishment; its bones were still intact. Martha and Andy spent countless hours, both indoors and out, scrubbing away the years of neglect. They replaced it with a personal and visionary style that would later come to embody Martha's visual underpinnings and design trademarks. Among her additions was a room at the back of the house (shown above) and a porch at the side, overlooking a new pool she installed and painted black to give it the look of a natural pond. She hired her brother George to convert the barn on the property into a party room for entertaining and to build a second edifice on the lot behind the house for a large industrial kitchen (for Martha's catering gigs) and guest rooms above. New gardens on the property included a luxuriant vegetable plot, several orchards (peaches, apples, pears and plums), a cutting garden, a formal herb garden and a shade garden. She resurrected the old chicken coop for her Araucana hens and rechristened it Le Palais des Poulets (Palace of the Chickens.) Martha and Andy later purchased an additional two acres adjacent to their property and doubled the size of the lot, bringing the total plot to four acres. The yard played host to numerous weddings and garden parties in the summer, while the home and its outbuildings became cozy places of refuge for an unending cycle of guests and visitors during the cold holiday season. As Martha's catering business became ever-more successful, she decided to write a book about one of her favorite topics: Entertaining. Using Turkey Hill as the backdrop, she filled the large, hardcover book with sumptuous photographs of food and settings that she and her staff had created. It would go on to become a bestseller and Martha began to use Turkey Hill and its captivating evolutions as tailwind for her ever expanding ventures as a caterer and author. Entertaining was one of many books to come by Martha that used Turkey Hill as the stage and platform from which to present her ideas on the domestic arts. Books on gardening, weddings, baking and Christmas all followed suit with Turkey Hill playing a prominent role in the books' photographs and text. With the launch of her magazine (Martha Stewart Living) in 1990, Turkey Hill again played centerpiece to Martha's articles and photographs, becoming a laboratory for story development, craft ideas, gardening information and decorating advice. The house took on a new, celluloid energy when it was filmed for a number of videos about entertaining and cooking sold through Kmart. In 1993 it was featured weekly (and then daily) on Martha's new television show. The house took on an almost mythological role as it became increasingly visible in all of Martha's offerings, including an entire line of furniture through Martha Stewart Signature and Bernhardt that is based on furniture housed at Turkey Hill. The chicken coop: le Palais Des Poulets While the grounds saw enormous changes under Martha's care, little was done to the interior and exterior of the home since its initial renovation by Martha in the '70s. New collections of antiques were amassed but not always displayed. The attic and the bedrooms had unfortunately become, by Martha's own admission, little more than tasteful recepticles for many of her treasured finds and books. In 1998 Martha finally embarked on a massive redecorating project and brought it all up to date, removing shutters from the windows, covering a useless window in the dining room to allow more wall space for art display, redoing the kitchen from top to bottom, reupholstering all the furniture, repainting the entire house, replacing the old floors with new pumpkin pine, creating new built-in shelves in the library, converting the back hall into a second library and reorganizing the entire house to free it of clutter and pare down her collections. With only three bedrooms and a basic layout of four rooms over four, the size of the main house is somewhat modest compared to some of the other homes in the area. But its legacy and its history and its impact on the lives of Martha's readers and viewers is indelible. Turkey Hill will forever be remembered as Martha's most famous house, as the house that started it all. The back porch was frequently used for entertaining small groups. The kitchen after it was renovated in the 1990s - quite a change from the rustic style of the kitchen as it appeared in the 1980s, shown above. The dining area in the kitchen. Two large, industrial-sized refrigerators held all the necessities.
Go inside the beautiful gardens and lush landscapes at four of Martha Stewart's homes, from her first residence (Turkey Hill) to her current estate in Bedford, NY. Here, she shares how she designed each garden at every property.
Martha Stewart led an intimate tour of her former Westport, Connecticut home and gardens for a few of my friends this past weekend. From t...
It's the stuff that dreams are made of: touring Martha Stewart's first iconic home and garden with Martha herself! That dream came true for several Martha Moments readers on Saturday, June 3, when Martha returned to her first home, Turkey Hill in Westport, Connecticut, to lead a tour for fundraising. The current owner of the home, Casey Berg, is a member of the board of directors of Positive Directions, a community-based, not-for-profit organization offering alcohol and substance misuse prevention and counseling services. Martha began the tour with a Facebook Live broadcast from the home, taking viewers on a tour of the home and garden with Casey. (Click the link above to view the tour if you have not yet watched it!) Following this, Martha welcomed a small group of fundraisers and ticket holders for a private tour. Several Martha Moments readers were among the group and I'm thrilled to be able to share some of their wonderful photographs here on the blog. I debated going but the tour fell on the same day as my nephew's high school graduation and I really did not want to miss that. I did feel as though I was there, however, thanks to Martha's webcast and all of the remarkable photographs and comments shared by Martha Moments readers on our Facebook discussion group. My deepest thanks to Martha Stewart, Casey Berg, Anthony Picozzi, Dennis Landon, Jeffrey Reed, Jason Zappolo, Collin Patrick Eastland, Darrin David, Rox-Anne Henderson, Joe Jelnicki and Nathan Schmidt for their generosity. Enjoy the photos, courtesy of the aforementioned group of individuals! For more about the history and details of Turkey Hill, click here. Martha began the tour with a live webcast from inside the home. She was very impressed the new owners had not painted over the wood mantel in the kitchen, which dates from the early 1800s. Martha spent weeks removing decades worth of paint and stain from this mantel to bring it back to its original finish. Martha once used these original warming ovens but the new owners use them as storage. While the new owners made several additions to the home, very little was done to the original abode. Above, the entry hall looks very much as it did when Martha was living there. A view of the entry hall from the opposite direction, looking toward the front door. Martha, standing at the front door, spoke to the group about the stone wall surrounding the property and the brick walkway, which she laid herself. The parlour of the home is very tastefully decorated. The crown moldings were Martha's addition! Martha speaking to the group in the dining room. Beside her is Casey Berg, the current owner of the home. Also shown is architect John Fifield of FPF Architects who designed the additions and renovations to the home after Martha sold the house. Very little was changed in the library. The lower shelves were converted into drawers but the finishing details were all Martha's designs. This is a new addition to the home: a large casual eating area and family room that connects the original house to the carriage house. Martha said during the tour that she had always wanted to do this and was pleased to see it come to fruition. This portion of the kitchen is also newly renovated. Martha installed this built-in cabinet in the late 1990s during a renovation of the home. It remains there today. This is a new breakfast room the Bergs built. It was once an outdoor porch covered by a pergola. It now connects to the original glassed-in porch that Martha built. The porch that Martha and Andy built when they bought the home in 1972 still looks charming today. Here is the driveway gate that Martha designed. She replicated it exactly when she purchased her home on Lily Pond Lane in the Hamptons. A smaller version connects the front pathway to the road. Martha laid all of the brick in the path herself. Here is a good view of the new addition to the home, connecting the original house to the carriage house. It affords the new owners much more space for their family and provides a gracious side entrance from the driveway. The lower portion of the carriage house, which once held Martha's catering kitchen, has now been converted into a garage. Above was once a guest suite but the Berg's now use it as a media room. Here is another view of the carriage house. This structure was built by Martha's brother, George Christiansen. The cupola is original, as are the stairs leading to the upper level. This is a view of the connecting addition from the back of the house. Here is a very nice picture of some very handsome gentlemen from the Martha Moments group! From left to right: Anthony Picozzi, Darrin David, Jeffrey Reed and Joe Jelnicki. They are standing on Turkey Hill Road in front of the stone wall that surrounds the property. Joe poses with Martha inside the house, holding his trusty copy of Martha Stewart's Gardening! Anthony also got to speak with Martha. He is showing her some intriguing sketches of Turkey Hill. Nathan Schmidt, Dennis Landon, Joe Jelnicki and Rox-Anne Henderson (from Canada) pose by the front door. Martha prepares to take the guests on a tour of the grounds. So lush and beautiful! Here is Dennis posing with the original Turkey Hill gardener, Levy Froes. He worked for Martha for many years, tending to the Turkey Hill gardens. The Bergs asked him to stay on after Martha's departure to help preserve and maintain Martha's work. The property still looks so lush and beautiful. Levy has done a superb job! This is a view of the pool from the back porch. The pool remains as it did when Martha installed it in the late 1970s. The new owners added a hot tub. The perennial border along the side of the pool looks so beautiful. A view of the house from beyond the pool. Lush, beautiful grounds were everywhere in evidence. Some of the herbaceous peonies that Martha planted. ...And alliums! While the greenhouse and chicken coop that Martha built sit empty today, they still look beautifully cared for. Jeffrey Reed noticed this detail on the side of the chicken coop. He had remembered it from an old episode of Martha Stewart Living: a convenient shelf to set down the eggs during harvest. It's a good thing! Speaking of Good Things, here is the garden shed where Martha first uttered those trademark words! She was painting the wooden handle of a garden spade a bright shade of teal and simply said, "It's a good thing." The saying stuck! The boys all posed in front of the shed: Darrin David, Jeffrey Reed, Nathan Schmidt, Joe Jelnicki, Anthony Picozzi, Dennis Landon and Collin Eastland. This is the barn on the property. Martha and Andy constructed it to provide a large space for entertaining. It's a very majestic looking structure. Jason Zappolo noticed the protruding stone 'steps' that climb up the side of the retaining wall: a very nice detail! I really hope you enjoyed this tour! I certainly enjoyed living vicariously through the lucky people who got to attend! My thanks and appreciation to each one of you who contributed photos! Please leave comments below! Please visit these links for more photos: Good Things By David Celebrating This Life Visiting Turkey Hill
Go inside Martha's first-ever home, Turkey Hill, a farmhouse in Connecticut. Take a tour of the beautiful property here.
Go inside Martha's first-ever home, Turkey Hill, a farmhouse in Connecticut. Take a tour of the beautiful property here.
Martha's garden at Turkey Hill remains, to this day, one of my favourite gardens of all time. While I never had the priviledge of seeing the property in person, it was extremely well documented in her magazines and on her television shows and I feel as though I have been there. Looking through some of the photographs of the Turkey Hill property recently, I began to see some lessons emerge - guidelines and philosophies for the gardener, expert or novice, to keep in mind while planning and tending her own garden. Below are ten lessons we can all learn from the gardens at Turkey Hill. ONE: THINK LIKE A PAINTER One of the things I've always loved about the Turkey Hill garden is how painterly it is. I think Monet would have loved to paint here, finding just the right angle from which to view the garden's beauty. Martha has said that Turkey Hill was a personal garden, one that evolved over several decades. The painterly quality comes, I think, from Martha's need to plant the things she loves the most and then finding just the right spot for those specimens. Colour and texture are considered. Varying heights and a mix of foliage keep the compositions interesting and 'negative space', such as pathways and lawns, give the eye a rest. In the photo above we see this painterly quality beautifully illustrated: a base of green dappled with brilliant pops of red and purple and pink; the light creates shadow and depth-of-field and the pathway guides the eye. TWO: INVEST IN WHAT YOU LOVE One of Martha's favourite flowers is the tree peony. It is not native to Connecticut. In fact, it is not native to North America at all. The tree peony originated in China, centuries ago, and was then introduced to Japan. Japanese varieties were the only ones available to the American market in the late 1970s but Martha was determined to grow them at Turkey Hill. A single specimen at the time could cost hundreds of dollars, because of their rarity. Martha was undaunted and made the investment, planting them in a mixed border in a partially-shaded location, shown above. She continued to grow tree peonies throughout her many years at Turkey Hill, adding new specimens in new colours, ensuring her garden contained examples of one of the flowers she loves the most. THREE: FRAME A GOOD VIEW No matter where you stood in the garden at Turkey Hill, it seems there was always a good view. Martha designed it that way and played up the views by framing various vignettes with arbors and pergolas that were laden with climbing roses. These 'frames' not only provided gateways into new, undiscovered areas of the garden for the visiting wanderer but also ensured that what was being viewed was seen through a defined aperture. In the photograph above, Martha's studio is beautifully framed by this arching arbor. It is echoed beyond by another identical arbor, which creates a sightline and a sense of symmetry. FOUR: READ, LEARN, GROW Martha designed her formal herb garden in the early 1980s. It arose out of a necessity to have herbs at the ready for her many catering projects. The design was adapted from a book called Herb Garden Design by Faith Swanson and Virginia Rady. One chapter in the book called Using Standards and Maypoles inspired Martha's layout. As you can see from the conceptual illustration of Martha's herb garden (top) it was intended to be extremely elaborate, enclosed by a stone wall. Martha did build the stone wall and planted the garden as planned. In later years, Martha conceded that the plan was too difficult to maintain and she scaled back the design to make it more streamlined and easier to care for. Martha did her research and compiled sources for inspiration. While the initial design may have been too ambitious, she tailored her expectations and made the garden workable for her needs. Never stop reading, learning or adapting. FIVE: CREATE A DESTINATION One of the first things Martha and Andy Stewart did when they purchased Turkey Hill was to install a pool. Far from the bright blue, kidney-shaped varieties you often see in backyards, Martha's was designed to look like a pond with its interior walls and floor painted black, initially, and then a deep shade of green. Over the years Martha built the space into a destination, a kind of 'garden room' where you could escape to. The unadorned lawn and the stone pathway leading to its entrance creates the effect that one is going somewhere special. The view is also partially obscured by the wisteria, creating a sense of enclosure and privacy. SIX: THINK SMALL Every space on the Turkey Hill property was considered, even the smallest corners. Oftentimes, the most diminutive spaces provide the most special compositions. Here, on the opposite side of the stone wall surrounding the pool, Martha planted a border of muscari, ferns and daffodils for early spring. The border is edged with old brick. I love the graduating levels of height and the mix of textures. It is a microcosm that is filled with its own breadth of life and colour. SEVEN: ADD STRUCTURE This old white picket gate leads from the pool to the orchard beyond. Flanked by rose bushes, it offers a nod to the English countryside. This gate was eventually replaced with a more modern design but it provides a sense of linear structure to an otherwise freeform garden, much the same way the stone walls do. Martha later added many tuteurs that were painted a deep shade of gray-green and placed them throughout the garden beds. They acted as structural columns that provided linear guidance for the eye. EIGHT: DISCOVER THE SHADE It was only in the late 1980s that Martha decided to landscape the east side of her property, which was extremely shady. Martha had initially left this part of her yard as lawn but later discovered numerous shade-loving plants. Martha endeavored to create a woodland garden with a winding pathway through the trees and garden beds snaking through the tree trunks. It was one of my favourite parts of the Turkey Hill property because of its cool, sun-dappled atmosphere. Filled with ferns, hostas and other shade-loving plants, it was a verdant place with a magic all its own. NINE: PLANT FOR A HARVEST Not every gardener will want to have a vegetable garden, but how nice it must be to step outside your kitchen door and harvest your own lettuce, tomatoes, cuccumbers, carrots and kale. Martha is shown in the photo, above, tilling the vegetable garden at Turkey Hill in the early 1970s. A vegetable garden was essential for Martha's catering business and she grew everything she needed, including asparagus, brussels sprouts, numerous varieties of squash, various leafy-green vegetables and much more. There was also an orchard on the property with apples, pears and plums, and a berry-bush grove where she grew raspberries, blackberries and strawberries. TEN: ROTATE YOUR CROPS The photo above, taken in 2003, is one of the last photographs of Turkey Hill under Martha's stewardship. As you can see, Martha's original vegetable garden, which was initially in this location and shown in the photo prior to this one, is no longer there. Martha moved the vegetable garden to another part of the property and replanted this area with a vast cutting garden, shown here. Rotating your crops reinvigorates the soil and curtails the growth of microscopic pathogens and parasites. The maturity of the Turkey Hill gardens meant that crop rotation was necessary to keep the soil rich and fertile. The results, as you can see, were highly successful!
Have you ever wondered what Martha Stewart's homes look like? We're sharing a glimpse inside our founder's properties, from her Turkey Hill farmstead in Connecticut to her modern condominiums in New York City.
Go inside Martha's first-ever home, Turkey Hill, a farmhouse in Connecticut. Take a tour of the beautiful property here.
Photos of flowers, landscape designs and architecture from the famousTurkey Hill Farm in Westport, Connecticut made famous by Martha Stewart
I often wonder what it was like that day when Martha, Andy and little Alexis made the drive from Manhattan to Westport, Connecticut, to look at the old white house at 48 Turkey Hill Road. It was 1972 and Martha had just left her job as a Wall Street stockbroker while Andy's career in publishing began to bloom. The couple wanted to get out of the city, to start something of their own, to refinish and refurbish, to garden and make a fresh start as young homesteaders. Martha could never have known the day they toured that shabby, run-down 1805 farmhouse that it would become the epicenter of one of America's greatest and most-influential businesses, nor that she, in turn, would become the inventor of an entirely new form of American lifestyle. Below are photographs of Martha and Andy Stewart in the mid- to late-seventies, the days of Martha's catering business. Martha and Andy look so happy together in these simpler times. Looking at old photographs - whether they document the happenings in my own life or the life of another - always makes me feel nostalgic. I wonder what could have been, what wasn't, and often smile at the innocence and optimism that shines out of the muted prints through the joy on the faces of the subjects. And the memories begin to flood in. In these photos of Martha and Andy I can almost hear the sound of Martha's clamour in the kitchen while Andy whistles in the other room. Or the chickens clucking in their Westport garden while they dig new flower beds . Or the phone ringing with an enticing promise. I wanted to share them with you.
Go inside Martha's first-ever home, Turkey Hill, a farmhouse in Connecticut. Take a tour of the beautiful property here.
Martha Stewart led an intimate tour of her former Westport, Connecticut home and gardens for a few of my friends this past weekend. From t...
When I last left the blog, I told you there would be part III of my account of the trip to NYC with Matthew Mead to attend a party for M...
I am so happy to share photos with you from my very special visit to my former Connecticut home. Over the weekend, I traveled about 30-minutes to nearby Westport and to Turkey Hill, the place I called home for more than 30-years. I was invited there to lead a tour and to speak at a
Photos of flowers, landscape designs and architecture from the famousTurkey Hill Farm in Westport, Connecticut made famous by Martha Stewart
Martha Stewart led an intimate tour of her former Westport, Connecticut home and gardens for a few of my friends this past weekend. From t...
Spending time with Martha's older books is a pleasure I try to indulge in at least once a month. I'm not one to let books sit around collecting dust. I read them - sporadically - and always leave several pages unturned so that I have something to look forward to the next time. Martha Stewart's Gardening Month By Month (1991 Clarkson Potter) was Martha's eighth book and is my second-favourite, after Entertaining. At the time of the book's release Martha was already a bestselling author, a well-known spokesperson and consultant for Kmart and a columnist in national newspapers and magazines. She was considered to be the leading lifestyle expert in America, with stints on David Letterman and Oprah, and special holiday programs on television. She was on the cusp of releasing the first issue of her magazine, Martha Stewart Living, and launching her weekly TV series of the same name. Yes, 1991 was a big year for Martha! I was in elementary school at the time of the book's release and the name Martha Stewart was still unknown to me. I purchased this book nearly a decade later and it instantly captivated me, reminding me of the gardens at my grandparents' house and the gardens I helped plan with my dad, sitting with him at the kitchen table imagining which plants would go where. It was the book's personal vision that I found so engaging, calling to mind nearly all of the gardens I had loved as a child, even if they were not as large or ambitious as Martha's. They still held so much wonder, then and now in memory, just as Martha's Turkey Hill gardens did for me when I first laid eyes on this book. Gardening Month by Month is the quintessential Martha Stewart book: a large, coffee-table sized format with full-colour imagery of the grounds at Turkey Hill. There are recipes and illustrated instructions, as well as informative how-tos that are humanized by Martha's personal garden journal entries. Already, Martha's lifestyle concept of incorporating several areas of content (cooking, decorating, gardening, crafting) into one beautifully-written, gorgeously-illustrated volume was apparent. The concept would prove to be the foundation for Martha Stewart Living magazine upon its release and Martha's eponymous company, by extention. Upon opening the book, the reader is greeted by this highly-detailed illustration of the grounds at Turkey Hill (above), showing all the various areas of the yard. This is only one section of the drawing, but it reveals quite a bit about the size and layout of the place. The book is divided by month, as the title suggests, with seasonal tips, recipes and instructions for the garden as it evolves throughout the year. There is information for growing specific vegetables and flowers, making flower arrangements and caring for houseplants. Its real strength, however, is the overall picture it presents of a successful garden that has been tended to and carefully planned, revealing hard-won victories that Martha's determination made possible. Whether she intended this or not, the book reveals a great deal about Martha's personal tastes and her formidable character. It is a wonderful book - one I cherish in my collection - and if you do not have it yet, I urge you to get it. These are two of my favourite photos of Martha in the book: on the left is Martha dripping with sweat and caked in dirt as the sun sets at Turkey Hill after a long day outdoors. You can almost hear her sighing. I think the photo goes a long way in quashing the impression many people had of Martha as someone who doesn't like to get her hands dirty. These gardens are her gardens and her personal work was instrumental in their keeping, year after year. On the right, Martha is on the sun porch, pruning some of her houseplants. In the book, she reveals that she has rarely had luck with typical houseplants but finds them irresistible. I enjoy the expression of uncertainty on her face as she leans back before making that fateful snip with her shears! View of an arbour leading to the shade garden at Turkey Hill. The dead of winter is the perfect time to plan and prepare for spring planting: Martha planning her formal herb garden, left, and ordering seeds and bulbs from her favourite catalogs, right. The plans for Martha's formal herb garden at Turkey Hill were extremely elaborate, as you can see in the illlustration above. The finished product was a rustic variation on the sketch, but no less prolific. In the book, Martha shows how the wall was built and how her herb plantings were planned. This arbour leads wanderers to the 'barn' shown in the background near the potting shed. It was an old structure at the back of the property that Martha used for entertaining and restoring large pieces of furniture. A second laneway led from Turkey Hill Road to this location, which is where the herb garden was planted on the opposite side. Martha's excellent flower-arranging skills are shown to great effect throughout the book in numerous examples. A restored kitchen dining set painted Martha's favourite colour in the studio kitchen, which was located in a separate building from the main house. This space was Martha's catering 'home base' for many years. Peonies and a white picket gateway leading to the orchard, left. Throughout the book are botanical illustrations from the 1800s by English artist J.T. Hart. These drawings were later developed by Martha into a collection of writing papers and stationery designed by Robert Valentine Inc. Martha in the studio kitchen readying the dried floral ingredients for large batches of her handmade potpourri, which was given to guests, hostesses and friends at Christmas in beautiful packages.
Creating Visionary Landscapes
Join us for dinner Established in 1984, The Farmhouse at Turkey Hill is a small, upscale restaurant featuring seasonal American fare, classic cocktails, and now, car-side pick-up. Dine-In Offering …
My summer love affair with black (here and here) continues, though this time, I think I could actually live with it. This is a guest apartment at Martha Stewart's former home, Turkey Hill. She used black paint to unify and simplify the small space. Furniture was an assortment of pieces of different style and pedigree, and most of it had been painted white at some point. "It was the popular thing to do -- dressing up shabby furniture with a coat of paint," says Martha." And I thought, if it works with white, why not try it with black?" In the kitchen, black soapstone countertops replaced white Corian, and black glass drawer pulls replaced wood. A wire rack from a flea market got a new coat of paint. The living room is an interesting marriage of black textures and fabrics. This room is my least favorite. I like most of the individual elements, but wouldn't have put them all together. I do love this little spot in the hallway, which features Martha's collection of Aesthetic Movement hardware. There is a drawer pull on the bottom of the window shade -- how clever is that? In the dining room, black painted chairs sit around a galvanized-steel tabletop. Dark paint inside the cabinet makes clear glassware stand out. A black-painted writing desk is accessorized with a black lamp and shade. In the bath, the carved wooden mirror got a coat of dark gray-black. Above a dresser in the bedroom, "an inexpensive mirror, framed in whimsical fretwork, became a glamorous accent for the bedroom when its old varnish was replaced with a deep, charcoal-gray paint." A collection of Wedgwood basalt pieces -- my favorite! -- sits on the shelf.
Spending time with Martha's older books is a pleasure I try to indulge in at least once a month. I'm not one to let books sit around collecting dust. I read them - sporadically - and always leave several pages unturned so that I have something to look forward to the next time. Martha Stewart's Gardening Month By Month (1991 Clarkson Potter) was Martha's eighth book and is my second-favourite, after Entertaining. At the time of the book's release Martha was already a bestselling author, a well-known spokesperson and consultant for Kmart and a columnist in national newspapers and magazines. She was considered to be the leading lifestyle expert in America, with stints on David Letterman and Oprah, and special holiday programs on television. She was on the cusp of releasing the first issue of her magazine, Martha Stewart Living, and launching her weekly TV series of the same name. Yes, 1991 was a big year for Martha! I was in elementary school at the time of the book's release and the name Martha Stewart was still unknown to me. I purchased this book nearly a decade later and it instantly captivated me, reminding me of the gardens at my grandparents' house and the gardens I helped plan with my dad, sitting with him at the kitchen table imagining which plants would go where. It was the book's personal vision that I found so engaging, calling to mind nearly all of the gardens I had loved as a child, even if they were not as large or ambitious as Martha's. They still held so much wonder, then and now in memory, just as Martha's Turkey Hill gardens did for me when I first laid eyes on this book. Gardening Month by Month is the quintessential Martha Stewart book: a large, coffee-table sized format with full-colour imagery of the grounds at Turkey Hill. There are recipes and illustrated instructions, as well as informative how-tos that are humanized by Martha's personal garden journal entries. Already, Martha's lifestyle concept of incorporating several areas of content (cooking, decorating, gardening, crafting) into one beautifully-written, gorgeously-illustrated volume was apparent. The concept would prove to be the foundation for Martha Stewart Living magazine upon its release and Martha's eponymous company, by extention. Upon opening the book, the reader is greeted by this highly-detailed illustration of the grounds at Turkey Hill (above), showing all the various areas of the yard. This is only one section of the drawing, but it reveals quite a bit about the size and layout of the place. The book is divided by month, as the title suggests, with seasonal tips, recipes and instructions for the garden as it evolves throughout the year. There is information for growing specific vegetables and flowers, making flower arrangements and caring for houseplants. Its real strength, however, is the overall picture it presents of a successful garden that has been tended to and carefully planned, revealing hard-won victories that Martha's determination made possible. Whether she intended this or not, the book reveals a great deal about Martha's personal tastes and her formidable character. It is a wonderful book - one I cherish in my collection - and if you do not have it yet, I urge you to get it. These are two of my favourite photos of Martha in the book: on the left is Martha dripping with sweat and caked in dirt as the sun sets at Turkey Hill after a long day outdoors. You can almost hear her sighing. I think the photo goes a long way in quashing the impression many people had of Martha as someone who doesn't like to get her hands dirty. These gardens are her gardens and her personal work was instrumental in their keeping, year after year. On the right, Martha is on the sun porch, pruning some of her houseplants. In the book, she reveals that she has rarely had luck with typical houseplants but finds them irresistible. I enjoy the expression of uncertainty on her face as she leans back before making that fateful snip with her shears! View of an arbour leading to the shade garden at Turkey Hill. The dead of winter is the perfect time to plan and prepare for spring planting: Martha planning her formal herb garden, left, and ordering seeds and bulbs from her favourite catalogs, right. The plans for Martha's formal herb garden at Turkey Hill were extremely elaborate, as you can see in the illlustration above. The finished product was a rustic variation on the sketch, but no less prolific. In the book, Martha shows how the wall was built and how her herb plantings were planned. This arbour leads wanderers to the 'barn' shown in the background near the potting shed. It was an old structure at the back of the property that Martha used for entertaining and restoring large pieces of furniture. A second laneway led from Turkey Hill Road to this location, which is where the herb garden was planted on the opposite side. Martha's excellent flower-arranging skills are shown to great effect throughout the book in numerous examples. A restored kitchen dining set painted Martha's favourite colour in the studio kitchen, which was located in a separate building from the main house. This space was Martha's catering 'home base' for many years. Peonies and a white picket gateway leading to the orchard, left. Throughout the book are botanical illustrations from the 1800s by English artist J.T. Hart. These drawings were later developed by Martha into a collection of writing papers and stationery designed by Robert Valentine Inc. Martha in the studio kitchen readying the dried floral ingredients for large batches of her handmade potpourri, which was given to guests, hostesses and friends at Christmas in beautiful packages.
Go inside Martha's first-ever home, Turkey Hill, a farmhouse in Connecticut. Take a tour of the beautiful property here.
