And Now For Something Different

 

I'm returning to the Phoenix Home and Garden tour with the fifth home we visited.  This time it was something totally unexpected.  The tour hosts called this place "The Secret Garden" and it was indeed a big secret.  In fact, touring this garden felt like we had actually left Arizona all together.  

Walking around this garden felt a lot like we had been whisked away to some foreign land.  We learned that this house was originally owned by a reclusive, well-known artist who over decades created a wonderland embellished with mosaic pathways and sculptures collected from around the world.

Do you know that old saying "it's a jungle out there"?  Well this was quite literally a jungle in there.  

The garden was a dense landscape of bamboo, mulberry, palms, ferns and roses along with a few other plants here and there.

The microclimate created in this environment keeps it a good 12 degrees cooler than the surrounding areas.

The vast yard contained fountains, bridges, ponds and pathways in addition to swimming pools of which there were two.  

All of this was hidden behind a very normal looking middle class home located in a north Phoenix middle class neighborhood.  I didn't get a photo of the outside of the house but one of these days I'll drive up there again and take a photo and post it just so you can see how ordinary it looks from the outside.

This garden was so vast with so much to see that I'm going to create another post with more photos of the garden area.  We actually got to visit the inside of this house too and there will be a third post to feature the inside decor.  This house was a complete surprise.