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Welcome Retreat

A classic restaurant's gardens shelter us in cool, calm green

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MIKE SIEGEL Despite traffic whizzing by on Aurora Avenue, a feeling of tranquility radiates from the small garden off the front lobby at Canlis restaurant. Designer David Pfeiffer wanted an organic, Zen feeling that matched the ambience of the classic Seattle restaurant. MIKE SIEGEL Sophisticated simplicity is the vibe in the tiny garden off the women's restroom at Canlis. The bubbling dish rock adds to the serenity of the scene.

WOULDN'T OUR messy world be a healthier place if an equal measure of green respite was mandated for every hour we spend indoors? As more and more of us live in condos and apartments, let alone idle endlessly in traffic, the gardens we come across in our daily lives connect us to nature. Seattle isn't quite "the Emerald City" it used to be, with more of paradise paved over for parking lots all the time. Which is why plants and gardens in public places are good business.

From commercial-district street trees to REI's native forest, merchants are providing a garden fix outside our own backyards. Which is why Canlis restaurant on Aurora Avenue now serves a potent shot of green, and it isn't wheat grass they're offering.

Canlis is a third-generation Seattle institution, almost as famous for its women's restroom as its menu. Designed by Roland Terry in 1950, the restaurant is an elegantly understated example of warm and welcoming Northwest architecture. In 1968, owner Peter Canlis remodeled the women's restroom, adding a picture window looking out to an intimate garden. Peter believed men came to Canlis for the scotch and the food, while women came for the ambience. His son, Chris, describes his father as a fabulous dresser who appreciated his female customers' enjoyment of the restaurant's beauty. Peter spent as much money on the restroom remodel and garden as it cost to build the original restaurant. The precedent was set, says Chris, of his more recent round of renovation that includes a new entry garden.

In 1996, Bainbridge Island architect Jim Cutler designed an update of Canlis, highlighting the virtues of Terry's original work. Cutler suggested emphasizing the near exterior, for although Canlis turns its back on Aurora with a view out to Lake Union, the restaurant's entry is on the highway side. A couple of years later, when a car veered off Aurora, crashed into the port-cochere and burned, it was time to follow that advice. Chris hired landscape architect David Pfeiffer to create a new garden, as well as renew the mystique of the restroom garden.

Pfeiffer simplified the private women's garden, adding maidenhair ferns, bamboo, moss and a bubbling dish rock for a subtle, hushed effect. The entry garden has the same sophisticated feel, viewed through a dramatic new floor-to-ceiling corner window in the lobby. The stone floor extends from the lobby out to pave the garden, further blurring the lines between indoors and out. The lobby's organic, Zen feel, emphasized by a Paul Horiuchi painting of rain falling on rocks, is echoed by the garden's mossy stone fountain and textural ferns.

Now In Bloom

Black magic Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus nigrescens 'Sooty') is a fragrant, hardy biennial with velvety chocolate maroon flowers on deep red stems. Even the leaves are flushed with mahogany as the season progresses. Easily grown from seed or nursery starts, this shadowy Sweet William is a dramatic accent in the garden or cut for arrangements, where it's long-lasting and sweet-smelling.

ILLUSTRATED BY JULIE NOTARIANNI

How to create such serenity in a small space close to the busiest highway in the state? Pfeiffer admits it's impossible to hide Aurora, but he did get permission from the city to plant the parking strip. He cut into the hillside to build an embrace of a flagstone wall, and clothed the garden in a serene palette of white and green. In spring, pale narcissus and snowdrops emphasize the fresh green of the foliage, followed by white allium, and icy Casablanca lilies. In autumn, a tiny grove of maples turns orange and red, setting off the blooms of white Japanese anemones. Evergreen magnolias and the maples are growing up to meet over the top of the gurgling Balinese fountain to create the feeling of a private little room. The entry garden, as well as the renovated women's restroom garden, are lit in the evening, when customers see them most.

Now Chris' son, Mark, is managing the restaurant, and it has two intimate gardens to match its quiet interior. "We want to restore the tranquility of life," says Chris Canlis, "and the gardens are a big part of that."

Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer and contributing editor for Horticulture magazine. Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net.