To describe the Hamptons estate that he transformed for Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka, Edmund Hollander begins with a question: “How do you design a landscape for laughter and joy?” Pleasure was definitely the mandate for the 10-plus acres, tucked amid a swath of Long Island woodland. The star couple, both consummate entertainers, envisioned a place for friends and family to dine, lounge, and run free. “Fun pervaded the process,” Hollander says of the project, a highlight from his lush new monograph, The Landscape of Home (Rizzoli, March 2024). Here, his axial plan heightens a sense of discovery, with linear bluestone pathways that usher guests to the many outdoor rooms, among them a potager, a bocce court, a firepit, and an amphitheater—plus a round pool 50 feet in diameter. Trees, too, form an underlying framework, whether in the case of the dining area’s rows of elms, the site’s preserved native pines, or the butterfly garden’s new pollarded catalpa. And when it comes to pollinators, the spirit is very much the more the merrier, with swaths of fescue and clover luring birds and bees. “There was a major ecological preservation element to our approach,” Hollander says. “Providing a pollinator habitat is important to our overall health.” Thanks to him, the energy is buzzing.
