 "It was late summer when I first saw Turrets Sea Side Garden. Even though it was so high with weeds that the view to the ocean was blocked, I could see the grandeur of it, which is what got me so excited. I knew something should be done about it." By Eamon's junior year, what had been a dream became an objective. For his senior project, he wanted to rebuild the 4,000-square-foot garden between Turrets and the sea that had languished in weeds for over half a century.
Eamonn wasn't the first student who longed to devote himself to the garden, but he was the first whom COA landscape architecture professor Isabel Mancinelli encouraged. "Until Eamonn came along, no one had the focus and competence to do it right," says Mancinelli, who holds the Charles Eliot chair in ecological planning, policy and design at the college. "Eamonn dug through those beds, getting out every last piece of witchgrass root."
By August 2005, the garden blossomed with pink roses and purple astilbe. At a reception to "open" the garden, Eamonn said, "When I started to work on Turrets Sea Side Garden, I knew I had a lot of learning to do. I feel very fortunate that at COA I was able to build the classroom for the learning I had to do."
 Eamonn was born interested in gardens. A tall, eagerly earnest young man who towers over his nursling plants, he talks about helping out with the extensive gardens his mother had in Alstead, New Hampshire, especially with the design and stonework. But it was a summer internship with Mount Desert Island expert landscape architect Dennis Bracale '88 that gave him the confidence to move forward with this massive endeavor. "I was able to see how quality gardens are created and participate in their growth," he says. "Working there helped me to understand the planning part, getting my ducks in order in terms of budgeting, deliveries, that sort of thing."
While the expectation for a senior project is that it be the work of one ten-week term, Hutton's project has taken him more than a year and a half. He spent months choosing plants, considering the mixture of sun and shade in the garden, the ease of maintenance, and Maine's long winters. Since records of the original garden, possibly designed by Turrets architect Bruce Price, have not been found, Hutton opted for a period look in the style of the great turn-of-the-century landscape designer Gertrude Jekyll.
"I turned pages all winter long," says Hutton. "I would think I had a foolproof plan, I'd show it to someone and then go back to the books. But Isabel was amazing, and her husband Sam Coplon and Rob Krieg have helped. Pat Chasse pored over the design and really helped a lot, as did Denis Bracale, biology professor Suzanne Morse and Lissa Hodder," a COA trustee.
Though Hutton graduated in June 2005 and is officially working for Bracale, he continues to monitor all aspects of the garden, from raising money to continuing the planting. Today, what had once been a bramble is a peaceful ordering of pale roses and white snapdragons waiting for further growth to fill in. Ultimately, Hutton says, it will be an elegant garden open to the public. Standing in the garden, he says, "you feel as though you're out on the edge of the ocean, it's like a hanging garden." Looking up from a plant he's coaxing into the soil, he adds. "This is the best canvas a landscape artist can hope to have. I might become a professional landscape architect and not get an opportunity like this again."
Caption: Eamonn Hutton working in the Turrets Sea Side Garden.
Watercolor aerial view of the garden by Eamonn Hutton. See more testimonials |
