Tending an Ever-Expanding Universe
By Tara Kelly
Photographs by Rana Faure
Tall and willowy with hair the color of autumn leaves, Eileen Naughton looks like she belongs in a garden, which is fitting because it’s where she spends much of her time.
A former media and tech executive, she held leadership positions at Time Warner, including as president of TIME magazine. Then she was at Google for more than 15 years. She started on the business side before she was tapped for human resources. When she retired from Google in 2021 it was as chief people officer. It makes perfect sense.
“I see many links between gardening and running a business. Good soil is akin to having a strong culture. Access to water and abundant sunshine are as necessary as having access to capital; planning and pruning are critical elements of good strategy,” Naughton says. Her LinkedIn profile notes: “I like to grow things and make things more beautiful: businesses, teams, family, gardens.” Naughton has an Earth Mother sensibility.
“Even before being in business, I was in the dirt,” she says. “When I was a teenager, I had a sizable indoor plant collection that my father, God bless him, helped me cart back and forth to college between semesters.” That dedication to the health and well-being of her plants is fully realized now that she is tending roughly 3 acres of gardens on a hillside in the town of Northeast.
“We bought the property in 1997,” Naughton says. It was part of a large farm that had been subdivided into multiple lots. “We weren’t looking for land; we wanted a house that we could move into right away,” she says. With three small children, and both she and her husband working full-time, they didn’t want a project. But of course, they went to see what was described to them as “the finest building parcel in Dutchess County.”
“It was open farmland looking out over a patchwork quilt of crops, woodlands, pastures, and hills, toward Stissing Mountain,” Naughton says. It felt like fate.
Naughton credits Judy Murphy of Old Farm Nursery in Lakeville as her garden guru. “Judy was in at the beginning, and we’ve been friends ever since. She helped us site the house and design the garden. I still rely on her for design advice, perennials, trees, and shrubs.” A major plot point in the story of the garden is that it doesn’t compete with the view. The garden flows over the landscape to the sides and the back of the house, leaving the vistas of the spectacular countryside unobstructed.
“Being in the garden is such an antidote to the noise of life. It’s meditative for me. I find it very relaxing and very satisfying to tame—and work with—nature.” Like any good boss, Naughton respects when a plant lets her know what it needs. “I visit the entire garden every morning. Every corner of it. I inspect things, pull weeds, smell the perfumed air.” Sort of like the morning meeting, this is when she plans out what she needs to do that day. She is attentive to every aspect of the garden’s life: What is languishing in the back, what is running roughshod over its co-workers. She notes the plants that have self-seeded, and the plant she likes in a color she hates. “How did that get there?” she muses. “I may have to open a new flower bed,” she adds.
Her husband, Craig, says, “Eileen’s garden is like the universe—it’s always expanding.” Like any thriving business, it wants to grow.
