A Wild & Abundant Garden on a Historic Rhinebeck, New York Estate | Garden Tour & Inspiration

So leaving the home, we get to my favorite part, which is the garden. Come on in. One of the things that feels really important to me is having not just vegetables and flowers as well. I know people get very specific, especially us very fancy designers, but to me, it's about, it just doesn't matter. It's okay. And our flowers and our veggies get all mixed together. Sometimes a watermelon grows in here, you know what? And it's great. So come on in. I wanted this to feel historic and true for the area. I know I got a contemporary house, but I got, I'm on Astor Estate. So I did a water fountain, of course, because you need one of these, right? And this greenhouse where we come in here, we'll have snacks in here, but really it's me working in the garden, pricking fresh vegetables from the day. These were harvested today. This old farmhouse sink I found on the street in New York City. And oh my God, I got it in my Toyota Prius about like 15 years ago. Our dried fruits and veggies, these are getting, going into seed next year. It's always a story. And then when we come in here, it's the flowers that come back and back, and we have cosmos and whatever it may. But really what it is, it's having the children be here. This is my grounding space. And then it's trying to keep the ducks, the pigs, and the geese out, which is always a challenge. Okay, are you ready? This is so much fun. We get to meet the babies. So the kids, if they were here, and we know Stefano always tells you the truth of what's happening, there is this ongoing joke in the family that I may love the pigs more than the kids. Maybe. So come on, let's meet them. This is Mater and Tater's mud spa. And they are asleep. It's a hot day. But what they do, look, we do keep mud for them. They take mud baths there. We have food. And this is their space. Usually 9 a.m., they're literally at the front door. 12 p.m., sleep, and then they get a little, like five, six, they get frisky. After this, we have the duck pond and this beautiful weeping willow. We planted this. It's always fun to see things grow and see how they change. So these ducks are babies. I mean, I brought them home maybe two months ago. I have to look at the date. I think it was Memorial Day. I brought them home and they were little babies. And now they're all grown up. And these are our geese. And then, of course, they need a fabulous home, right? So the chicken coop, but we only have one chicken that lives inside. So please enjoy the irony of that. But here is the duck goose coop. Of course, it's gonna be fabulous. We actually use it. They sleep inside. Well, one of the things that I find very personal to me was when I first started my company, I wanted to be a landscaper and hands-on. And my first business card was five tools with my company name underneath it. And I didn't realize I did this intentionally, but I was like, where do I put my tools? And I hung them up and I've been collecting these feathers. And then all of a sudden I blinked and this was my original business card. So it felt really cool. And it's a little Dutch door. So the babies, they come in stages. So usually when they're little babies, they move into different sections and go out into the world. We do have an extra space there if anyone is interested. I am trying to find someone who will live with us and take care of animals that is available for anyone who wants to join us. Machka, there's another dog, Svenny. So this is when we first came here, the front yard was barren, great American lawn. This was barren except for those three maples and the perimeter. And then we had this one small swimming pond that was maybe a 10 foot circle. And oh my God, did we put time into it. And so much effort. So what we did is we made a natural swimming pond. And this is not because we wanted it. I'm not even gonna pretend. We wanted a fancy swimming pool and thank God it didn't work out. But what we did is we excavated it out. We laid it with stone. The water comes in naturally. And then we have a natural filtration system that the pool cleans itself. But it's completely natural. The kids live in here, live in here. We have an extra guest quarters there, the tent area. We have, if you come here, there's a whole little kid's town over there that was built into the woods. And this landscape, it was intentionally left as long grass with paths. The other thing I did was I did the deck. And that was a big part for me because how we live, we live outside. We live outside. So I designed the deck to cover the whole side of the house because honestly, I couldn't think of anything better to do. It's a lot of deck. So we live, you wanna come up? Come up. Fireplace area. This is usually our late night spot. And if you come here, this is our everything spot. This is it. We sit here for every meal pretty much during the summer. Even when it's raining, we have these fantastic sails. These tables can be made into one long one for more of a formal function. But usually we're just sitting out here. The grill, there's a fridge. It's not fancy. It's really just about the kids being soaked from the swimming pond, coming in, veggie hot dogs, hot dogs, doesn't matter. The neighbors come over, it's an open invite. Thanks for watching. Be sure to go to homeworthy.com for exclusive content, shopping guides, and so much more.