The Monks of New Skete

A SACRED GARDEN – A Transformation of Space -
The Welcome & Meditation Gardens at
The Monks of New Skete

Brother Stavros Winner – a brother at the Monks of New Skete, came up to me after a town meeting concerning our sister city in Italy and introduced himself. During the meeting he learned that I designed gardens, and they had a problem they needed a design solution for.  Stavros (affectionately known as Stash), ever one, subsequently learned,  to seize an opportunity to get something done, invited me up.

The problem they had was a huge set of concrete stairs 16 feet wide and perhaps 20 ft. long that had to be shoveled after every snow fall, every winter. The Monks of New Skete are comprised of 5 or 6 aging men and they detested that choir – as they quite plainly told me.  They needed a ramp that would lead from the drive up to the chapel where they conducted most of their services. A ramp could be cleaned of snow with a snow blower and would make the journey easy for walking visitors as well as the handicapped.

The loathed stairs

While there I was struck by the fact there here was one of the most beautiful places on the planet, in the Green Mountain tops, away from every highway and all traffic and  noise, that people  visited from all over the world and there was nowhere to sit or walk or enjoy being outside.

As a designer of gardens and landscapes the remission here was to me visceral. There was an ugly slope planted with mostly the wrong plants (Rhododendron baking in the sun, Spruce, nibbled in the winter by the abundant deer…), there was  a driveway, one bench on a 4′ wide concrete sidewalk and no place to enjoy being in the beautiful out of doors.

Meditation and Welcome Gardens at the Monks of New Skete

Now note, the buildings of New Skete are very attractive – built by the monks themselves I believe – old dark wood  or vivid red, topped with golden Russian like domes or with spires – the Monks of New Skete are Russian Orthodox. The stark contrast between the architecture and the picturesque setting and the utter lack of invitation and possible use within the surroundings themselves was incongruous.

So, I designed a ramp that cut through their concrete retaining wall and curved softly up to the chapel. And I designed a terraced landscape that eliminated the slope and transformed it into a multi-terraced garden with two ponds and a waterfall and lots of places to walk around and to sit and meditate.

The Monks of New Skete - Before transformation

I proposed the idea to the monks and they loved it. As it happened, it fit perfectly into their goals of reaching out and making themselves more inviting, accessible and welcoming to the local community and to the world at large. It was a perfect fit between their aspirations and my perception of what needed to happen on this site.  So the project began, at first tentatively, searching for the right materials and the right contractors .

The right contractor was at hand, he was already doing their roads, and he was good, reliable and reasonable – but where would the massive boulders the design specified come from? The monastery of New Skete is by no means wealthy and altogether too many things have to be done on a shoe string. What could we use? Where find them?

Where the stairs and the slope once were

That serendipitous adventure will be the next posting on the transformation of the gardens of the Monks of New Skete but first a word about how all this relates to beauty and art.

The highest art form is, arguably, the art of living and those experiences which contribute to the quality of our life, especially those which so do by contributing to the quality of our state are invaluable and to be sought and cherished. Here, in this spiritual community of people who have devoted their lives to the worship of the divine (my interpretation), or, as they express it, to a contemplative life from which so many of the distractions of ordinary life have been removed, the experience of being in nature can be a genuine assist.

The surrounding woods are abundant at the Monks of New Skete – but so are various forms of wildlife, including black bear and not everyone is up for a treck into the wilderness. Certainly many of the guests would shy away from penetrating into that genuine wilderness. Yet they too have come to New Skete to nourish the spiritual within themselves. Having beautiful gardens in which they contemplate their commitment to the divine, reflect on the singing they participated in or the sermon they just heard holds the possibility of contributing to their elevation – to their spiritual growth. – The art of beauty. The beauty of art. Next time, some after images and more on the involved, complex and challenging process that was the transformation of the property at the Monks of New Skete and about all the people who contributed to it.

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