Landfall

In 1956 Thomas and Mary Hall commissioned St. Louis architect William Adair Bernoudy to build their summer home on a cliff sixty feet above Northeast Harbor. The home’s massive chimney is visible to ocean-going boaters, hence the name “Landfall.” The Halls credited much of the garden design to landscape architect Howard Kneedler, although no plans or additional information exists. Mr. Hall, a noted plant collector and botanist, gathered more than 65 shrub and tree species from North America, Europe, and Japan for their 1 ¾-acre property. The gardens of Kyoto were particularly influential, reflected in Landfall’s Japanese-style studio with evergreens clipped to emulate ocean waves, and stone pillars set among native trees and moss. The main garden was built around the 50-foot by 250-foot stone foundation of a demolished summer cottage, on which the Halls built planting beds while leaving exposed much of the stone foundation and ledge. The landscape includes naturalistic ledge pools, numerous dwarf conifers that frame ocean views, espaliered Golden Chain and crabapple trees, rhododendrons, dogwoods, a moss garden, and a mature white pine hedge with summer blooming perennials at the base, which Mary Hall planted to recall Chartres Cathedral. The garden also features sculpture from Kyoto, along with works by Marie Taylor of St. Louis and Gerhard Marcks.