ABSTRACT
Jacky Tyrwhitt took her time looking for land on which to build her house in Greece. The site had to be within commuting distance of Athens and have easy access to an international airport; there had to be land suitable for cultivation; she wanted a view that changed with the seasons, and at least a glimpse of the sea; and she wanted there to be some established trees (Tyrwhitt 1998: 2). Her close friend and ACE colleague, John Papaioannou, helped “scour the Attica peninsula for her in search of suitable sites” Catharine Nagashima recalled. 1 When she found one with potential she would take her sleeping bag and spend the night there. In late summer 1962 she was convinced that she had found her place. Since she was leaving for the US the next day, she entrusted Papaioannou with negotiations to secure the property. This proved to be a difficult job which Papaioannou—who was devoted to Jacky—handled with finesse. [E.43] When she returned to Greece in May 1963, she saw the land he had been able to buy: a strip of land running to the top of a steep, rocky, wind-swept, south and east-facing hillside overlooking the plain of Mesoghia (now occupied by the new Athens airport), then a largely rural area about 45 minutes southwest of Athens by car. Her idea for the garden was to collect the local flora and simply mass it and group it and let it grow, but first she intended to spend a year observing and cataloguing indigenous plants; there was a lot to do before the job of gardening could begin.
