Landscape Designer Jean-Marc Flack Leaves No Stone Unturned
Enhancing Nature at Hill Station in Rhinebeck

By Tara Kelly
Photos by Jason Schmidt

At the end of a long winding drive, a hilltop property outside the village of Rhinebeck is swarming with activity. It’s plant refresh day, and landscape designer Jean-Marc Flack is there overseeing it all. “It’s the most joyous day,” he says. He radiates calm efficiency as he discusses plant placement with his staff. A soundtrack of Baroque music plays softly from a Bluetooth speaker attached to his gardening belt, enhancing the mood.
For Flack, this project started six years ago. His clients, having recently returned to the U.S. after years abroad, wanted a place to host and entertain. “When I’m designing a landscape, I need to understand the client’s lifestyle. The owners have lots of guests, sometimes hosting very large parties. They wanted different kinds of outdoor environments, a pool, pool house, terraces, places for their guests to relax and explore.”
“But the landscape was always a priority. They knew they wanted major gardens, but they also wanted to enhance and protect the existing environment: pine groves, vernal ponds, wetlands, wood trails, and bedrock ledges.”
Flack begins every project with a master plan and an immersion study of the existing property. “Working with Hudsonia, we commissioned an environmental resource mapping survey. We identified areas of interest and invasive plants, and created maps for ongoing management. I really strive to have it make sense in the broader context, to create a sustainable landscape, one that requires less maintenance over time.”

“That’s the joy of having a long-term relationship. It becomes intimate, as you get to go back every year, working closely together, coming up with new ideas.” He created a green roof garden on top of the pool house, with a sitting area that looks out over the Catskills. Rocks have a formative place at Hill Station. Flack gives much thought to circulation and movement through the landscape. Stone paths connect the house and pool house, winding through perennial gardens with flowering shrubs and grasses. Sitting walls, sometimes made of slabs, sometimes rough cut, sometimes embedded with boulders, always locally sourced, define outdoor rooms. A new project will create an amphitheater on a naturally occurring slope of bedrock.
Though it now seems like second nature, gardening began as a way to relieve the stress of a 30-year career as CEO and partner in a multi-brand international fashion agency.”I set my sights on my 800-square-foot terrace in the East Village. Very soon I was spending every weekend going on garden tours and buying plants. There is no way to overstate the therapeutic process of gardening,” Flack says.
His interest grew to include design, and Flack enrolled at the Bronx Botanical Garden’s School of Professional Horticulture, attending nights and weekends while managing his day job. He graduated seven years later with certificates in sustainable garden design and landscape design.
Twelve years on, Flack is clearly in his element, with a custom-made project for the ideal clients.
—hortulusanimae.com