Thomas Church Garden

The landscaping and courtyard garden at this Angus McSweeney-designed home was done by renowned landscape architect Thomas Church in 1939.  A notable feature at the front of the home is the rock and ivy landscaping to the left of the front stairs was designed by Thomas Church to replicate a series of waterfalls. Unique trees were selected by Church for the street-facing landscaping, including a bonsai-style cypress, and along the San Buenaventura side of this corner home, a horse chestnut tree and a copper beech tree.  Inside the courtyard is a brick patio with perimeter plantings reflecting Church's interest in outdoor living and demonstrating the four principles of his design process: Unity, Function, Simplicity, and Scale as articulated in his influential and popular landscape design books, including, Gardens are for People (1955), and Your Private World: A Study of Intimate Gardens (1969). 

Thomas Church received his B.A. degree in Landscape Architecture from the College of Agriculture at the Univesity of California, Berkeley, in 1922. He then attended the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he received his master's degree in City Planning and Landscape Architecture in 1926. After graduating, Church spent six months at the American Academy in Rome on a Harvard-awarded Sheldon Traveling Scholarship. He studied Italian Renaissance gardens, and Moorish and Iberian Renaissance Spanish gardens, observing their responses to a climate so similar to the Mediterranean climate in California. Church opened his design studio in San Francisco in 1933 and continued to practice there until his retirement in 1977. Notable employees included Garrett Eckbo, Lawrence Halprin, Douglas Baylis, and Robert Royston.

Open Days 2024: Sunday, June 9
Hours:10 a.m. to 4 p.m.