A Tale of Two Gardens

By MARELLA CARACCIOLO

Enlarge Image

Sally Gall for The Wall Street Journal (2)

East Hampton, N.Y., left, and Itri, Italy

WHEN ROBERT JAKOB isn’t planting, pruning and building fences on the East Hampton, N.Y., property he bought 32 years ago, he tends to a garden in a valley near the town of Itri, south of Rome. In 2001, Mr. Jakob, a garden designer and painter, and his then-partner David White, the longtime curator of Robert Rauschenberg’s estate, were in Italy on their way to Naxos, Greece, where they wanted to buy a house. “We visited Cy Twombly and Nicola Del Roscio in Gaeta,” Mr. Jakob said. “Cy mentioned a piece of land nearby that was up for sale. ‘It’s bucolic,’ he added. We went to see it that afternoon: glorious views and crumbling pig and goat sheds. David and I decided this was it: a Mediterranean alternative to our East Hampton home.”

Sally Gall

Robert Jakob looking out from his living room in Itri, Italy.

Monti Aurunci, a mountainous region overlooking the sea, is best known for its 50-odd varieties of wild orchids, for its rare salamanders and, a few generations back, for the fierce nature of its brigands—a far cry from the cosmopolitan comforts and luscious gardens of the Hamptons. “The property in East Hampton had a shell of a building we were told had been used by Willem de Kooning as a studio in the 1950s,” Mr. Jakob said. This Italian adventure offered the opportunity to design a home from scratch. “All the houses I had liked during my travels kept cramming my mind.” The end result of this memory edit is a two-story modernist-looking building. The animal sheds were transformed into guest rooms where close friends, including garden historian Mac Griswold, come to stay. The interiors are sparse: a few weathered 18th-century pieces of furniture, mostly Swedish; some work tables; a sofa; and a handful of Mr. Jakob’s own botanically inspired works on paper (his show at the Drawing Room in East Hampton last fall was sold out).

Though the East Hampton cottage embodies a similar taste for minimal décor, the views from the windows tell a different story. “Back in the ’80s, I became obsessed with English gardens, which I tried to emulate,” Mr. Jakob said. “I collected old roses, irises and perennials. The garden evolved into a series of ‘rooms.’ So it was overwhelming, in Italy, to feel so exposed to the landscape.”

Which is why he decided to keep his Italian garden to a bare minimum: a few flower pots here and there (agapanthus plumbago, irises and Mrs. Oakley Fisher roses) and an enclosed garden where lavender bushes and cardoons live side by side.

Sally Gall for The Wall Street Journal

Verdant Paradise

East Hampton, N.Y.

The back of Robert Jakob and David White’s Hamptons property was planted with a mix of gaura, hollyhock and butterfly wheat. Views of the marshes are blocked by hornbeam hedges and a brick wall.

Enlarge Image

Sally Gall for The Wall Street Journal

One big room

Mr. Jakob calls this “the large room,” and it serves both as computer zone and dining area, with the kitchen occupying one corner. The pair of chairs was designed by master woodworker Jean-Baptiste-Claude Séné, a favorite of Marie Antoinette’s. The painting on the back wall is by Mary Heilmann, whose garden in Bridgehampton Mr. Jakob helped redesign.

Sally Gall for The Wall Street Journal

Enveloped in green

Enlarge Image

Sally Gall for The Wall Street Journal

The arbor

Wooden floors, a small writing table and a comfortable armchair, usually 18th-century Swedish, can be found in bedrooms in both homes. This room in the Hamptons opens onto a shaded garden area bordered by shrubs and potted plants. The arbor, with its wooden beams sustaining a roof of grape vines, serves as a shady sitting area. In the warmer months, this part of the garden blossoms with peonies, Siberian irises and gooseberries.

Itri, Italy

Enlarge Image

Sally Gall for The Wall Street Journal

Keeping it low-maintenance

In Itri, it’s all about the landscape: sweeping views over rugged mountain peaks, sunburned valleys and pristine coastlines. With the exception of some fruit trees—citruses, pomegranates and almonds—herbaceous borders and a few potted plants, Mr. Jakob has kept the garden to a bare minimum.

Enlarge Image

Sally Gall

Handmade home

The kitchen, like the rest of the house, was built with the help of local craftsmen who carved slabs of travertine to make the sink and counters.

Sally Gall

Open vistas

Enlarge Image

Sally Gall

The pergola

The top-floor bedroom in Itri, where a Robert Jakob drawing hangs on the wall, opens onto a sunlit terrace commanding views of the valley and sea. The pergola, with its locally handcrafted terra-cotta tiles, built-in benches and 18th-century majolica tiles, is an outdoor room for gatherings and meals. With the help of Anthony Gammardella, who also designed the pool, the house’s animal sheds were transformed into guest rooms.

Explore More

• 

  Let the Sun Shine In
  

• 

  Your Guide for Summer Decorating Ideas
  

• 

  Make a Summery Flower Arrangement