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Country Inns
Bed & Breakfast
Written by Jody Jacobs, Photography by George H. Long
July/August 1992

It had rained the night before, a soft and gentle summer shower, unexpected yet very welcome on California's northern coast. By morning the garden embracing the cottages that make up Greenwood Pier Inn is bathed in misty sunlight and washed by ocean breeze.

What makes this garden so very special is its location - perched on a bluff overlooking the endless Pacific. Sometimes the fog rolls in, and guests awaken to an eerily beautiful gray blanket that soon bums off-, or it may creep in as the sun sinks below the horizon and the sea cools. But on this summer day, the weather is perfect at this retreat in Elk, on the Mendocino coast.

Artist-poet-cook-host Kendrick Petty - a Renaissance innkeeper, if you will - has been tending to chores. As he strolls the grounds, no errant weed escapes his eye; with a quick pinch he dispatches any uninvited intruder. Kendrick is the one responsible for the fanciful architecture of the eleven cottages; each is different and each is charming in its own way. When not planning additions to the complex, Kendrick is also head gardener and chef at Greenwood's restaurant (open only on weekends).

His wife, Isabel, also an artist, is as creative as he. Among her other innkeeping talents, she is responsible for decorating the interiors of the cottages and for running the treasure-filled country store just off the scenic highway at the entrance to the inn. This bright morning finds Isabel gathering flowers to arrange, while letting the store fend for itself. These bouquets are desfined for tables in the reception area in the cottage that also serves as the Pettys' home, guest lounge, and often the site for weddings with the ocean as a larger-than-life back-drop.

The artistic couple have owned this Shangri-La for some twenty-four years and have been adding to it all the while. When they first moved here, there was only one cottage and no garden, but Kendrick saw the site's horticultural potential. Comparing the weather to England's, he says, "Everything that grows there, grows here." The Mendocino coast is protected from extreme weather, and even delicate bougainvillea climbs high and thrives. So, over the years, an English garden is exactly what Kendrick created. It may look as if the flowers have just grown naturally- example of nature at its best - but Kendrick his a blueprint for each patch of ground. Everything, but everything, has been carefully plotted.

Round any comer in this garden and you will run across a new variety of plant. Magnolias and fruit trees, annuals and perennials, native wildflowers and exotic tropicals - all coexist in harmony. Red geraniums, rainbows of showy pelargoniums, and vivid nasturtiums seem to grow untended. Spires of delphiniums and bold white Shasta daisies line herbaceous borders filled with poppies, flowering Nlalvas, soft gray lamb's ear, and the lavender of sweet alyssum.

The Garden Cottage is surrounded by Virginia stock and hydrangeas in full blossom, and it is during the summer months * is that the grounds are lush with flowers. A wooden torii gate weathered to pewter gray and covered by jasmine leads to a walk that skirts the cliffs edge, Here, the SeaCastle reigns - the roof of its columned entry graced by planters cascading with flowers, its back overlooking the massive rocks offshore that once supported the original pier for which Greenwood is named. Still more roses cover the fence that circles the edge of the property - Cecile Brunners with delicate pink buds, the venerable Belle of Portugal. A flowering plum beyond is now all wine-colored leaves; the Gravenstein apple trees, ripe with fruit.

Amid all this splendor, Kendrick reserves a place to grow the lettuces and herbs he needs for cooking. Like everywhere else in the garden, the herb beds are a riot of color. Salvia, foxglove, and the Victorians' favorite, the daisylike feverfew - they're all here.

Another of the wooden walkways leads to the top of the cove that faces the offshore stone pillars. Here, succulents, valerian, and poppies grow to the very edge of the bluff, seemingly to tumble hundreds of feet to the beach below. The nasturtiums are hidden beneath its green leaves, but what leaves they are easily plate-sized and cupped to hold each drop of min as if it were a precious gem.

The view west from the cove overlooks the vast Pacific and its line of "sea-carved arches" - the rock formations described by Kendrick in one of his poems, in which he muses, "Do they appear to be two dinosaurs kissing in the moonlight?" Any coastline inspiring such flights of fancy is certainly worth a glance or two, but true garden lovers will in the end turn eastward, away from the vista and toward the clifftop garden, an exquisite piece of the Old World transplanted to the edge of the New.

Greenwood Pier Inn, 5928 Highway One, Elk, CA 95432; 707-877-9997; Eleven guest cottages, all w/private baths. Rates from $80 to $190, including contential breakfast. Cancellation policy. MC, Visa.

Jody Jacobs is a writer who lives in California.

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