Walled Gardens of Italy

While studying architecture in Italy, Lori learned a lesson that continues to shape her work today: to design a garden, you must begin with a wall, not to confine but to define.

Italian walled gardens embody this idea beautifully. Take Villa d’Este in Tivoli, a Renaissance marvel of terraces, fountains, and symmetry. Its power lies not just in the grandeur, but in sequence, each space unfolds like a page in a story, with walls and hedges guiding your eye.

Villa Gamberaia, tucked in the Tuscan hills near Florence, offers another kind of magic. There, less than three acres hold multitudes: a sunlit terrace with box hedges and frogs, a shaded bosco rich with ilex, a lemon garden where geometry meets delight. The mood shifts gently as you move, enclosed, curated, and entirely intentional. 

At The Wren, we often return to these gardens when thinking about interiors. Their structure and rhythm echo in the rooms we love most. Whether it’s the quiet curve of a built-in bench, a moody alcove layered with art and shadow, or a powder room wallpapered like a grove. 

Garden rooms teach us that scale matters less than feeling, and that a space, however small, can hold a world, if it’s shaped with care. Just like a garden path leads from one moment to the next, interiors, too, can unfold in vignettes, not all at once, but thoughtfully, inviting pause, presence, and beauty.

We don’t need walls to build barriers. We need them to frame, protect what’s personal, and create space for the story. Whether in stone or plaster, hedge or textile, the boundary becomes the beginning. 

After all, even Eden was a walled garden.