Written by Neil Turitz
Photographs by Sean McLaughlin

In 2012, Selke moved into a house in Lenox that had been her mother’s (her mother passed away in 2011). To be fair, the property was already pretty fantastic—an 8-acre lot that slopes downhill and overlooks Lily Pond, the Stockbridge Bowl, and Kripalu. You can hear the music from Tanglewood. It’s a spot that any reasonable person would describe as breathtaking. Selke herself teases a visitor by accurately noting the guest is “gobsmacked” by it.

But she wanted to make some changes to the house she shares with her husband, Jim Crane, and where, as she puts it, “I will spend my dotage.” Those changes altered the shape of the grounds, and even the layout of the home itself, making it more hospitable to guests and residents alike. “I love to cook, I love to entertain, I’m that kind of person,” Selke says. “The house was beautiful, but you couldn’t accommodate that many people. So now we have a graciously sized living room and exterior, the pool has plenty of room without it looking like an event space. And at the same time, it’s our home, and my two very young grandchildren live a few yards away.”

Selke wanted to have everything she needed at her fingertips: a pool, a gym, a larger outdoor space for entertaining guests, with her considerable gardening skills showcased and trees strategically planted to highlight that stunning view. She worked with local stonemason Aaron Girgenti, landscape contractor Donnie Carlow, and horticulturist Simon Chennells (see sidebars) to conceive the new space. She also purchased the plot of land directly south of the property, redesigned that, and it’s where her daughter, son-in-law, and two young grandchildren reside, in a brand-new house just across the shared driveway from her own.

She has everything she wants, and it’s spectacular. It all feels natural and organic, an outgrowth of the land on which it sits. It’s exactly the thing on which Selke built her work, and now she exists inside of it. “My whole career is about aesthetic,” she says. “Making your eye move with ease throughout a space, going from indoors to outdoors, from room to room, where nothing is jarring. You want there to be connection. That’s what I wanted here.”

THE TALENTED TEAM

Selke counted on several local pros to execute her vision. Architect Tyler Weld (tylerwelddesign.com) planned the home renovation and pool house. (Interiors designed by Marie Flanigan will appear in a future issue.) Billy Drakely of Drakely Pool Company (drakelypools.com) created the pool. And Cindy Parsons, who was Selke’s mother’s gardener, “guided me through all the planning and plantings.” Here are three more experts whose work transformed the property.

Donnie Carlow
Landscape Contractor, Carlow Contracting
Lots of guys liked to play with trucks and bulldozers when they were kids, but not too many of them turned it into a career. Donnie Carlow’s dad had one of those machines, and it made such a mark on his son that he turned into a landscaper. “I always had a passion for the outdoors, for excavation, for construction in general,” says the Berkshire native. As he got older, that passion turned into something else. “I loved creating spaces. Seeing something and having a vision and then being able to bring that to life.”

There was almost no part of Selke’s property that wasn’t touched in some way by Carlow and his team. Not just moving earth, but also moving trees and planting sod. That’s the obvious part of the job, but there’s also the other part. The fun of it for Carlow is working with his clients to take an idea and bring it to fruition. Someone like Selke, who had specific notions about what she wanted, is ideal. “It’s rewarding to be able to help her facilitate her vision. You can make something look great, but it also has to function, and that’s a key part of what we do.”
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Simon Chennells
Horticulturist, March Hare Farm
Simon Chennells understands that a lot of his work is going to have a delayed reaction. That’s the thing about working with trees: they grow, slowly. So, when a client has a certain idea in mind for their property, and he puts a young tree into a specific place, he knows that it might take some time for the client to really see the fruits of his labor. Maybe even a lot of time.

The South African native first moved to the Berkshires to manage the Blantyre resort in Lenox. He met his wife, Kate, there, and the two eventually moved back to his homeland, where he fell into his family’s botany business. When the couple returned to the Berkshires, Chennells had a new career that he loved. “A lot of my clientele will find me sitting on their sofas, just staring at something, because I’m trying to envision what will work,” he says. “I’ve got a good ability to put myself in their place. Here, so much of it is about the view, and highlighting its beauty. Making it more impactful.”
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Aaron Girgenti
Stonemason
Some people talk about how their trade is in their blood. For Aaron Girgenti, that’s pretty close to literal. Girgenti is a third-generation stonemason, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. For the Girgentis, bricklaying and masonry is just part of life in the Berkshires. “My uncles were all bricklayers and masons, too,” Girgenti says. “I started in about the seventh grade. I loved working with my grandfather. He really nurtured it in me.”

Nurturing is an odd word to use when it comes to working with stone, but feels apt for what Girgenti has done on Selke’s property. The garden planters are built from bluestone, which also makes up the patio around the pool and the 36-inch Rumford fireplace on the deck. Some would look at the work Girgenti does, crafting brick and stone and giving it a life of its own, and see it as an artistic endeavor. Don’t count him as one of them. “I see it as more math than art,” he says with a laugh. “There’s an equation to making it all fit, and if you follow certain formulas, you can’t go wrong. But if people want to call it art, I’m just happy I get to make a living at it.”
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