The extensive renovation of one of Palm Beach’s most renowned estates, historic Villa Artemis, demonstrates clearly the advantage of bringing landscape designers into projects early.
The landscape, the house and a new guesthouse truly work as one, lending visual elegance and cohesiveness to the oceanfront estate, completed in 1917 for the Guest family but owned for more than four decades by the Rosenthals.
In recognition of its significant role as part of a greater whole, the garden design by Nievera Williams Design on Thursday won the third annual Lesly S. Smith Landscape Award from the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach. The honor was announced at the foundation’s headquarters on Peruvian Avenue during the annual dinner of its Preservationist Club.
“Designing one of the most iconic vistas in Palm Beach was never going to be easy, but, the garden design at Villa Artemis by Nievera Williams is a triumph,” said Alexander C. Ives, executive director of the foundation, in a prepared statement. “An example to all, it is a great choice for the award.”
Villa Artemis is home to Michael and Jane Rosenthal Horvitz as well as to Cynthia Rosenthal Boardman, Jane Horvitz’s sister. Prior to the renovation, the family had successfully worked with Mario Nievera on small projects at the beachfront estate.
It came as no surprise that they enlisted his services again when they began planning major additions and renovations to the Regency-style estate at 656 N. County Road two-and-a-half years ago. The architectural firm of Ferguson Shamamian of New York City designed the renovations.
“I worked with the architect and the owners to come up with a scheme based on the existing house and walls. This is the ultimate Regency house,” said Nievera, whose business partner, Keith Williams, was involved in developingthe landscape plan.
From the start, the team agreed that the landscaping would showcase the classically-styled structures rather than compete with them. The result is a design respectful of the estate’s original grandeur, but with an emphasis on more updated plant choices.
“While horticulture has changed over the years, I wanted the grounds to look like they did in my clients’ memories,” Nievera said.
Hence, pittosporum, Australian pines and St. Augustine grass have been replaced with green island ficus, clusia, Confederate jasmine, dwarf podacarpus, hibiscus and zoysia grass. The existing sea grapes and sabal palms couldn’t be touched because of protective regulations.
“We were aiming for elegant simplicity — something to set the structures off, nothing too dramatic,” said Michael Horvitz. “My wife does not like lots of different colors, so we used a restrained palate.”
Other than white hibiscus and a few purple bougainvillea, the landscape design relies on lush green foliage to soften and complement the many stark-white stucco surfaces so typical of the Regency period.
In fact, this particular house helped spark the popularity of the early 19th-century style of architecture that today is found throughout the island.
Previously renovated
Designed in 1916 for Frederick and Amy Phipps Guest by architect F. Burrall Hoffman, the house gained national fame thanks to the famous poolside picture of C.Z. Guest, taken in the mid-1950s by society photographer Slim Aarons and featured on the cover of his book Once Upon a Time. Hoffman is most famous for designing Villa Viscaya in Miami.
Even before the recently completed renovation, Hoffman’s original design had been considerably altered. His two-story home surrounding an open-air atrium had been reduced to a single floor in a modernization overseen by architect Marion Sims Wyeth in the early 1960s, several years after the property was acquired by the late Leighton Rosenthal and his late wife Honey.
“My father-in-law took the second story off the house and turned the atrium into the living room,” said Horvitz. “We added guest rooms to the basement, so we had to enlarge the windows to get light in there.
With windows so close to the ground, Nievera has kept the beds of white hibiscus and green island ficus clipped low to prevent the plants from obstructing the light.
Thanks to Nievera’s persuasiveness, coconut palms once again flank the meandering drive up to the main house.
“Mrs. Horvitz was worried about straight soldiers lining the drive, but I showed her a Photoshop vision of how to use the coconut palms,” Nievera said. “There’s a certain glamour to this property I wanted to restore.”
Curved palms now gracefully flank the drive, while mature banyan trees were left in place on the adjoining lower level.
Now that the tennis court in the lower garden has been refurbished, family and guests can view games in progress from a new patio. The house and patio sit well above the court; beds of Cuban gold duranta line the stairs that lead to the upper level.
“My wife and daughters all play tennis, but we haven’t had an opportunity to entertain on the terrace yet,” Horvitz said. “We have outdoor furniture coming from our Cleveland house.”
New guesthouse
On the eastern side of the estate, wide expanses of paspalum lawn set off the famed tempietto, a Greek-style temple structure that stands at the ocean-end of the narrow decking and pool.
“The buildings should (appear to) just float on grass,” Nievera said.
Black sculptures flank the pool stairs and stand in the center of the tempietto. They also are set off by the imposing columns.
“Originally, there was a bronze sculpture in the temple, which I replaced with this marble,” Horvitz said. “I think it looks pretty good in there, but some of the other black sculptures are painted, so we’ll find replacements for those.”
Amy Guest once donated a sculpture from her collection to the town — the statuesque figure that stands in the middle of the fountain in Bradley Park on the northeast side of the Flagler Memorial Bridge.
Opposite the original pool house, Horvitz removed the old walls and hedges to make room for a guesthouse in the same Regency style.
“My sister-in-law is living in the guesthouse, and that’s working out great,” he said.
On the south side of the guesthouse, Nievera enclosed the space and planted rose beds to accommodate Cynthia Rosenthal Boardman’s dog and her favorite flowers.
Because Native American burial mounds run along the south side of the property, archaeologists had to oversee much of this renovation.
“We had an archaeologist supervise the guesthouse addition to locate any remains,” Horvitz said. “We did find some evidence that people had been buried there — a tooth, I think.”
Legally, Nievera was restricted from altering any of the plants growing atop the mound.
“I was only allowed to get the fountain working again,” he said.
Horvitz said he is very pleased with the renovation — and with the landscape in particular.
“Mario’s been a friend of ours for many years, and I think it’s turned out great,” Horvitz said.
And such close collaboration has also paid off handsomely for Villa Artemis.
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