July 26, 2010

This is the Charles Drake house at 50 South Battery. The garden echos the strange melange of architecture: Sweet potato vines! Colonial Revival! Shocking pink crape myrtle! Queen Anne! Asparagus fern! Arts and Crafts style!
Heavens to Betsy, this house has it all. Circa 1890, it is a veritable newcomer to the neighborhood. The Drakes eclectic tastes called for a stone foundation with a paneled, shingled and clapboarded second-story. There is a porte-cochere, an arched arcade and curved windows, interior and exterior shutters, gingerbread, columns, capitals, balustrades and an overhanging roof topped with an American flag.
This week we will focus on gardens and the unusual. Just the ticket when walking around the Battery in the early morning, dodging the vigilant parking patrol.