On a leftover site in Punta Pite, landscape architect Teresa Moller’s house is a study in give and take.

By Jimena Martignoni/Photography by Cristóbal Palma

Nestled into steep cliffs that face the Pacific Coast of Chile, the landscape architect Teresa Moller’s house combines a small-scale rewilding and a site for the study of seacoast plants. The experimental gardens at Moller’s house, in the residential development Punta Pite, are part of a 27-acre property that follows the contours of a bay between Zapallar and Papudo, two sea towns located about 100 miles north of Santiago. Started more than 15 years ago, the gardens seem to have realized their full potential, though they are also, fundamentally, an evolving work in progress.

Facing a record-breaking drought that has lasted more than a decade, Chile is going through its worst water crisis. At her home in Punta Pite, Moller has created a place where a wide range of native and nonnative drought-tolerant plants coexist and complete a positive ecological feedback mechanism. In a coastal environment, with the necessary daily humidity provided by the ocean, the plant communities have managed to survive the extreme conditions that are affecting most ecosystems on the planet.

Moller’s reputation is well-established. A Chilean landscape architect based in Santiago, she was chosen by Gardens Illustrated as one of the world’s most interesting designers. Recently, she received the 2021 Global Award for Sustainable Architecture sponsored by UNESCO, and was also included as one of the 50 featured landscape architects in 250 Things a Landscape Architect Should Know.

In 2005, when Moller acquired the lot in Punta Pite, she was working on the design of the public spaces for the private development (see “Cliff-Hangers,” LAM, August 2007). A key component of her proposal—the walking path sculpted from the existing cliffs that she designed in situ—helped Punta Pite become one of the designer’s landmark projects, one that has been published worldwide. As to how she herself came to own a piece of property at Punta Pite, Moller says she fell in love with the site after so many visits and long days working with the stone craftsmen. “There was this very steep piece of land that was not for sale because it was at the very back of the development and part of the hillside that had been cut in order to build the upper public road,” she says. “So the owners offered me a great deal if I was able to restore this wounded landscape. For me, the wound was so sad and visible I wanted to heal it.”

While working on the final pieces of the landscape plan for the site and the pathway along the coastline, Moller began construction on the first retaining walls, which strengthened the once-shattered hillside. The stone retaining walls consist of a series of sections of varied heights at the edges of which grow trees, shrubs, herbs, cacti, and ground covers.

The lot’s full length is 315 feet and the width is approximately 115 feet, but the slope was so high that by shaping narrow paths and horizontal surfaces out of the available land, she made it appear wider. These paths were planned as intimate walkways connecting the linear spaces and flatter areas that would receive the new planting and provide the raw land for the house. Completely adapted to the existing slopes, hanging across the land as a bridge, and respecting the location of all the existing trees found on-site, the shape of the house reminds Moller of “a caterpillar going forward, toward the ocean.”

Moller was closely involved in the house’s architectural layout and established the main guidelines for its design, which was led by the Chilean architect Bernardo Valdés. But it was the landscape of stones and plants that she felt was her professional duty and something that, over time, turned into a personal project. Facing a creek whose restoration and replanting Moller had overseen as part of her initial work at the site, the hillside was planned as the recipient of the typical plant species of this sheltered, marshy ecosystem. Re-creating this natural landscape as an area that could reconnect fragmented patches and habitats throughout the site was Moller’s main objective. The new regenerated landscape would be an offspring of the creek, growing side by side until it developed into an integrative natural system.

To stabilize the slope for construction, the initial stages of the plan focused on the stepped retaining walls that reinforce the eroded slopes and create a stable pad where the house would rest. The height and width of every wall section respond to its location and, therefore, to different structural, functional, and formal needs. At the bottom, longer and lower walls create a first row that demarcates the full extension of the lot and follows its original curved shape, offering a strong base and providing room for smaller ornamental plants. At the intermediate areas, the walls are cut and differentiated in planes of diverse proportions, increasing in number and presenting a more dynamic layout that alternates with the remaining spaces filled with greenery.

In the early years of the restoration process, Moller began to plant the area. She created linear spaces or terraces that provide enough room for plant combinations, especially behind the house. A subtle but significant difference between the front of the site, mainly characterized by the multiple stone walls, and the area behind the house was that the latter is a more private place to be enjoyed as a visual composition and as a sensory experience. Made up of many different planted spaces, the site can be appreciated as one single composition, with the terraced gardens bordered by very narrow paths. Sauntering up and down these terraces and having the chance to enjoy the many colors, perfumes, and textures displayed is an intimate and peaceful moment of connection with nature.

Approximately six or seven years after Moller first started planting, she ran into an unexpected problem. Originally, the hillside had been planted with more than 30 eucalyptus trees that, as part of a decision made in the early stages, were left untouched; even the house’s architectural layout was adapted to the trees’ locations. But this seemingly environmentally conscious choice didn’t take into account that these invasive, nonnative trees—extensive water users with root systems that can disrupt natural water flows and cause soil erosion—would inhibit the growth of the rest of Moller’s landscape. “These trees were sucking up the water provided by the drip irrigation system and leaving all other plants thirsty,” she says. “They basically were not growing while the eucalyptus trees seemed to be conquering the land.”

In a controversial but, in Moller’s mind, necessary decision, she cut down every one of the eucalyptus trees. Not long after, things changed.

Native species from the region and those planted in the creek sprouted and started to grow into a dense young woodland. Three native trees iconic in arid and semiarid coastal zones in Chile—mayten, molle, and Chilean mesquite—rapidly propagated and established small glades throughout the site. Native shrubs also typical of the Chilean coast such as vautro, chagualillo, and chagual started to poke their heads above the soil as well.

“IT WAS MAGIC AND VERY MOVING, SEEING HOW THESE PLANTS I KNEW SO WELL WERE GROWING SPONTANEOUSLY.”

—TERESA MOLLER

Many flowering plants also arrived on the scene and created large beds that now cover different areas of the hillside. Alstroemeria, one of the most diverse groups of vascular plants endemic to South America, usually blooms after the rainy season, and Moller noticed it for the first time after the trees were removed. Also known for its flowers, native Calandrinia produces masses of blooms. Combined, these colorful compositions attract small birds and butterflies—a sign of success on the recovery path originally traced.

“It was magic and very moving, seeing how these plants I knew so well were feeling at home and growing spontaneously,” Moller says. “It was something to celebrate, especially because they grew very fast. With new shady areas, other plants began to naturally grow too. It was a victory of nature and the result of healthier conditions.”

Not only native species were planted in the beginning, and with more adequate general conditions, many of the introduced trees and shrubs appeared naturally in different places or grew much larger. Australian coastal species she had found at local specialty nurseries in some of her plant-gathering expeditions turned out to be another great revelation after the eucalyptus trees were removed. Showy honeymyrtle, coast banksia, and sweet hakea are three of the Australian species that grew spectacularly. At the present time, she is working on a “Mount of Olives,” as she calls a corner of the site, far away from the house and more exposed to the sun, where she has planted a cluster of young olive trees that so far are also growing happily.

When talking with Moller about how the results of the rehabilitation, the experience of going from a wounded land to a flourishing ecosystem, finally balanced—and surpassed all expectations—the word “garden” seems an ill fit. Instead, a natural system or plant community feels more appropriate and (redundantly, perhaps) more natural. Only then do words seem to find their right place, just as, under the right conditions, the plant species at Punta Pite found their place and thrived.

Jimena Martignoni is a curator and freelance writer specializing in urban and landscape design projects in Latin America. She is based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.