Elbow Beach Hotel
“Our grounds have been extensively landscaped and improved over the past three years, with the addition of new paths and the planting of many species of flowering trees and shrubs, under the professional guidance of renowned English landscape designer, Russell Page, O.B.E.”
In the early 1980s, the Elbow Beach Hotel in Bermuda published a catalogue listing all the plants at the hotel (see RP/5/2/4). This publication marked the end of a project that had involved a major redesign of much of the resort’s layout and planting (the property was set across 29 acres of land).
Elbow Beach was, by the 1970s, a well-established resort. It had opened in 1908, the first hotel in Bermuda to be built next to the beach. Starting life as three guest cottages, it soon expanded to become the South Shore Hotel, and continued to grow over the next forty years. In 1947, the resort was bought by English businessman John Moores (later Sir John), who transformed the hotel into one able to accommodate mass tourism, adding a swimming pool and beachfront cabanas in 1959. By the seventies, the resort could house around 600 guests at any one time.
When, in the late 1970s, Page was brought in to oversee the new landscaping at the resort, it was John Moores’ son Peter who was managing the project. The drawings and letters in the archive reveal that it was as much a matter of designing pathways and the hard landscaping as it was about overhauling the planting scheme. Page devised new solutions for dedicated parking areas for bicycles and for the resort’s pub. He advised on the redevelopment of the beachfront area. He drew up designs for benches, and for a new pond and rock garden terraces. Steps were rearranged and modified.
Page, who could not be permanently onsite due to the location, suggested that he visit at least twice a year for as long as the improvements to the grounds were continuing. He worked alongside architects: the Bermuda-based Kaufmann Mitchell & Associates and O’Donahue Associates (who had offices in Liverpool and London). This working relationship was not without its challenges, and Page had no qualms about requesting the architects redo work he was unhappy with, as a letter to Peter Moores, written after a visit to the site in April 1978, reveals:
“Everything on terraces garden side of hotel seems OK except the main flight of 10 steps up from round terrace. I had carefully put in 7 risers and then a landing and then 3 risers. This has been changed to 10 risers and no landing, so after the long climb up the hill our main access to the hotel once again appears narrow and forbidding. A second minor point is that if we continue the circular wall round the lower patio logically it hits the other circular wall round the high drive tangentially which will leave an arid triangle too narrow to plant so I have asked the architect to make a return at 90 degrees to the pool wall at the point when I still will have 18 inches or two foot width of planting space left.
[…]
I have asked the architect to rebuild the second retaining wall between the top of the flight of 10 steps and the swimming pool wall but sitting it back 2 foot behind the original line. It will be the same level as paved space between the two lots of steps and seen from below will show as about 2 foot high. The reason for this is to give me increased space and less steep slope for planting round the hotel side of the round patio and give me another space for level grass and, hopefully, some flower planting at the main landing level.”
Such attention to detail was entirely typical of Page. The steps not only had to be configured in a certain way but they also needed to be a specific colour: to achieve this, cement was mixed with coral sand.
When it came to implementing the new planting scheme, this too was not without its difficulties. Firstly, the soil needed to be improved as the existing base was, effectively, sand and thus failed to provide the necessary nourishment for the trees and plants.
Page was pragmatic in his approach, aware that it would take time to develop the gardens. In a letter to Peter Moores, undated but likely to have been written early in the project, Page explained his plan:
“New main terrace – herewith plan showing suggested flower-beds for planting up with annuals. I am working out a scheme as best I can for this season (as we will inevitably be late getting these annuals ready). Next year we can probably improve our colours etc. The trees I am leaving for the moment as I can’t locate any decent sized citrus trees. Am now thinking of standard LOQUATS (Eriobotrya) which may be easier to find. The podocarpus – are like Irish yews.
Round patio. Not sure yet what permanent planting should be so will fill in with white daisy bush to get us through the summer.”
An indication of the original desired planting scheme is suggested by a letter from Mr Griffiths of Brighton Nurseries, Bermuda about the availability and cost of plants requested by Page: Agapanthus africanus, Cassia alata, Oleander, double yellow Hibiscus, jonquils, Datura white, Allspice (Pimento dioica), Bottle brush (Callistemon), Jacaranda, Pawlownia, Euphorbia, Lantana, Mesembryanthemums, Plumbago carpentae, Hedychium and Heliconia. Nearly all of these, Mr Griffiths assured them, could be sourced although several would have to be grown to order. (Pawlownia, according to Mr Griffiths, would not grow on Bermuda.)
The Elbow Beach project came towards the end of Page’s career. By this date, he had plenty of experience of landscaping semi-public spaces, and at managing work at a distance. The last of the drawings is dated 1981, and it is unlikely that he continued advising on the project for long after then. The published Catalogue of Plants is a permanent testament to the extensive and impressive planting scheme which was achieved at the resort.
Literature
Page, Russell, letter to Peter Moores. Undated [c. 1978]. (Archive of Garden Design Ref: RP/1/19/37)
Griffiths, Malcolm D, Brighton Nurseries, letter to Mr W J Peters. 28 February 1977 (Archive of Garden Design, Ref: RP/1/19/37).
Related material in the Archive of Garden Design
RP/1/19/37: Elbow Beach Club, Letters
RP/1/19/38: Elbow Beach Club, Project Notes, Memoranda, Reports and Plant Lists, 1977-1980
RP/5/2/4: Elbow Beach Club, Catalogue of Plants