Entering these private havens is a privilege, enjoying them a pleasure

George Stevens (left) joins his wife Liz on one of several tranquil terraces that surround their spacious Georgetown residence.

Edenic Retreat

Hidden on a small lane in Georgetown’s “East Village,” George and Liz Stevens’ exquisite garden sanctuary bids visitors welcome to its many tranquil corners – each one perfect, or nearly, after 22 years of loving care.

“I’d rather be digging than anything else,” indefatigable cultivator Liz Stevens says on a sultry spring afternoon as she contemplates another round of planting, pruning, and plucking on a quiet terrace so near and yet so far from an adjacent swimming pool and tennis court. “Whatever is blooming now, won’t be in a month,” she notes, pointing with some satisfaction to a nearby bed of all-blue aquilegia from which all white and pink interlopers have been banished

Weeping pear, American hornbeam and other stately trees shade the site amid carefully tended boxwood and flowering plants (Chinese peonies, holly, lilacs), obelisks, statues of playful cats, and even an odd edible or two – though seasonable greens are hardly a priority here. “We used to have them, but no more,” Mrs. Stevens says with a laugh. “It turned out to be the most expensive salad in the world.”

By Kevin Chaffee. Photography James R. Brantley