Real Estate Investing Information Blog

Garden real estate is a niche in the real estate property marketplace. It includes momentous gardens, town gardens, country estates and roof gardens. Combining the attractions of town and country has attracted people since antique times and the idea was illustrated with the well-known Three Magnets Diagram which led to the Garden city movement. For much of their evolutionary time humans were Hunter-gatherers with a nomadic lifestyle. Civilization began when our associates began to live in towns. But as Carl Jung argued, our group unconscious seems to have retained a memory of previous conditions of existence, including a love of the ordinary world. The initial civilization, in Mesopotamia built fortified towns on tells. They were raised over the flood plain of the Tigris and Euphrates and delimited by irrigated gardens on the lower land.

Living in fortified towns remained admired for most towns in most parts of the world. The exceptions were in civilizations with a strong central right, like the Roman Empire which made it adequately safe to live in what became known as villas. They were situated outside fortified towns. The garden mails of Pliny the Younger provide the oldest literary account of the life which could be enjoyed in what the new world would call 'garden real estate'.

The creation of cannon in Medieval Europe reduced the attraction of living in fortified cities. The walls no longer gave defense and the crowded conditions were unlikable. Renaissance authors, similar to Alberti remembered how the Romans had enjoyed villa life and enormous families, like the Medici, began to build country villas with big gardens outside Florence and extra walled towns. The fame of garden estates has grown steadily since that time and border with this type of property are growing rapidly outside significant cities. For potential garden-owners, the problem is that few suburbs are planned to have excellent gardens. Some well-known exceptions are Hampstead Garden Suburb in London, intended by Edwin Lutyens and Riverside, Illinois intended by Frederick Law Olmsted. The landscape architecture profession has developed about the idea of integrating urban design with normal processes. In his well-known book, Ian McHarg called the idea Design with Nature.

Purchase of next homes provides another solution to the problem of how to merge the delights of the town with the delights of the country. The Scandinavians seem for summer homes and seashore homes. The British desire for nation cottages at weekend retreats. The Americans seem for vacation homes, frequently in the overseas property market.