The Capri, Marfa

Two years ago, John and I ventured out to Marfa and stumbled across the Capri event space, which is directly across from the Thunderbird Hotel and owned by the same folks. The gardens were designed by Christy Ten Eyck, and they are really very amazing. The space once held a hotel and parking lot and it has been transformed into a West Texas garden wonderland.

Ten Eyck made ample use of native grasses, such as blue grama and side-oats grama, as well as West Texas stand outs, like Mexican elder (if anyone knows where I can get this small tree, please let me know!).

Here's a fantastic clump of blue grama in bloom:

Here you can see the crushed stone paths weaving through the grass plantings to connect visitors with steel fire pits ringed by stones. I can only imagine how magical those fire pits are on a cool starry night in West Texas.

Side-oats grama edges a limestone path:

A very Donald Judd-like geometric cement pool is nestled among tall gabeon walls:

Here's a few shots from a recent 2011 visit. A lot as grown in 2 years. It was really cool to see how everything filled in. (These three photos are from my my iPhone after the batteries died in my SLR...bummer.)

This is a lovely little scene with freestanding steel posts standing in a row among big fluffy grasses. Fantastic idea.

Ten Eyck is a landscape architect with offices here in Austin and in Phoenix.