The Land and Garden Preserve is a public landscape encompassing natural lands, trail networks, coastal shoreline and three historic display gardens. The lands have been stewarded for thousands of years by Indigenous people and, in more recent times, by non-Indigenous farming families. The Preserve expanded in 2015 and now encompasses 1,450-acres of diverse landscapes.

Landscape architects, Unknown Studio, together with architects, Beyer Blinder Belle, undertook a comprehensive Framework Plan to consider the Preserve’s cultural vision, operational needs and pressures from visitors and climate change. With a planning horizon of “Timeline Infinity,” the design team considered the inherent tension in both preserving and sharing the beauty of the Preserve. 

Working as part of Beyer Blinder Belle’s team, Miriam Kelly surveyed twenty-one historic buildings and structures across the Preserve, and developed strategies for their repair and adaptation. Designs for the reuse of the historic buildings proposed sensitive ways to welcome visitors and tell the story of the Preserve. New buildings supported expanded visitor welcome and improved maintenance or horticultural facilities. Designs responded to remote off-grid locations and encompassed environmental strategies to help the Preserve become fossil-fuel-free.

The Framework Plan established Planning Objectives, Environmental Services Strategies, Design Principles, and a Phasing and Prioritization Plan. The Framework Plan enables the Land & Garden Preserve to unify its disparate sites around an aligned organizational structure and cultural vision.