GREENWICH — Fred Landman, the owner and expert green thumb behind Sleepy Cat Farm in backcountry Greenwich, and Curtice Taylor, a local photographer, will take part in a discussion at the Perrot Memorial Library about the new book “Sleepy Cat Farm: A Gardener’s Journey.”
The book discussion will be held in-person and virtually at 7 p.m. Dec. 1. It is the first in-person adult program in nearly two years at the Perrot Library after the COVID-19 pandemic shut down many in-person events.
To register for the Livestream, visit perrotlibrary.org/events.html.
Located on 13 acres in the backcountry, Sleepy Cat Farm represents the creative vision of Landman, who acquired the Georgian revival Home in 1994 and set to work with architect Charles Hilton and landscape architect Charles J. Stick to create “a garden of which the house could be proud.”
After a 25-year collaboration, Sleepy Cat Farm features an abundance of garden experiences: formal boxwood and undulating hornbeam hedges, dense woodland, reflecting pools, arbors and follies — and a ferme ornée, or ornamental farm, that offers organic produce.
A self-taught gardener, Landman serves on The Garden Conservancy’s board of directors. He resides at Sleepy Cat Farm with his wife, Seen Lippert, a professional chef who spent more than a decade at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif.
Taylor has been photographing landscapes and gardens for more than 40 years and has been published in House & Garden, Architectural Digest, and Connecticut Cottages and Gardens. A childhood friend of Landman, Taylor has been documenting the gardens at Sleepy Cat Farm for more than a decade.
In an interview and tour of the property with Greenwich Time in September, Landman described how he spent more than a quarter of a century creating the garden oasis with lush meadows and groves, pavilions and pools.
The property is now a popular stop for garden tourists who Landman happily welcomes to promote a love of horticulture.
“Should I just sit here and be a miser with my pot of gold?” said the former president & CEO of PanAmSat. “It should be shared.”
The new book,“Sleepy Cat Farm: A Gardener’s Journey,” which was published in October, offers a look inside the enchanting grounds. With text by Caroline Seebohm and photography by Curtice Taylor, the nearly 200-page book chronicles the evolution of the property after Landman acquired it.
Hilton and Landman together tackled the pool area, where they designed and built a pool house with an open pergola and two brick pavilions — the first of many new features of Sleepy Cat Farm.
While Landman worked on the initial planting beds, he brought in Stick, who was instrumental in turning Landman’s visions into realities that work in harmony with the property’s natural attributes, Landman said.
The estate’s gardens are a bit like a world tour — from the parterre and putti fountain to the urn-topped grotto and arresting Porta Paradiso to the Chinese pavilion, prayer wheels and raised wooden-plank spirit walk through an iris garden.
While each garden area represents a specific design, the overall plan was to enchant and entice visitors, Landman said.
“This path encircles this area and leads back to the way we came,” he said during his chat with the Time. “If you’re curious, you can go off and do other things. You can go off and discover.”
The new book chronicles the story of the property, although that story may not have yet come to an end, he said.
“I’ve never said I was done,” Landman explained. “If you have a chance and you can… you should always make something beautiful.”
Founded in 1904, Perrot Memorial Library in Old Greenwich is a private nonprofit institution. For more information, visit www.perrotlibrary.org.
Reporting and writing by Meredith Guinness is included in this story.
https://www.greenwichtime.com/local/article/Owner-of-Greenwich-s-Sleepy-Cat-Farm-showcases-16660014.php
