Jordy Scott doesn”™t believe in complacency.
He doesn”™t want his employees and in turn his company, Glen Gate Pool & Property, to get stale.
That is why he sets up out-of-office ”“ and often outdoor ”“ seminars for his workers and clients.
Scott is managing partner of Wilton-based Glen Gate, which has more than 100 staffers and 120 clients. The company, which started in 1972, provides a single point of contact for all outdoor services that his high-end clientele might need, from creating flower gardens to providing an overall master plan for the property to choosing the correct statuary and trees.
The property on which a house sits is an extension of the inside of the home, according to Scott; just as one would have fine art, paintings and plants in their homes to add personality, the yard should not be overlooked.
Scott tries to set up three seminars a year for his company and clients.
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Over the past dozen or so months, the company has visited White Flower Farm, a family-owned, mail-order nursery in Litchfield, the Philadelphia Garden Show and has taken a special tour of New York City public spaces and architecture led by Colorado College fine arts Professor Carl Reed, a sculptor.
A seminar is part promotion, part customer relationship management and part education, Scott said.
With so many things to know about, “we find by exposing ourselves to a wide variety of art, design and creative thinking, we learn about the philosophy of creative thinkers. It”™s like a renaissance for us,” he said.
“While we”™re a team who represent a variety of expertise, not one person can be an expert in all fields.”
Scott said that while his master planner might possess the skills to pick the exact statue for his blueprint, the full variety of choices is now also in his planning kit. The seminars afford the team the ability to grow its depth of knowledge, he said.
In the early 1990s, Scott said his father, Joe Scott Jr., set up a series of seminars that included visits with a Japanese garden creator, a furniture maker and an opera singer. While the careers may have been disparate, it afforded the employees a chance to learn the creative process behind them.
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A seminar last month was held at the Katonah home of Barbara Israel, a collector and seller of international garden antiques.
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The tour and talk by Israel afforded members of the Glen Gate team as well as several clients the chance to learn firsthand on how she chooses statues and ornaments as well as how she established specific niches on her five acres that differ from each other in layout and content.
Israel spoke of the specific material of each statue ”“ iron, bronze, stone, terra cotta ”“ and how they react to the elements over time. Due to the high and often unreachable cost of most originals, Israel three years ago started Garden Traditions, which reproduces a wide array of her inventory and are sold at significantly less cost.
From a formal garden to a swimming pool outlined in flagstone to a quiet grotto to trellises bearing grapes and morning glories, the Glen Gate group took copious notes and photos.
Israel, who said she was always interested in antiques, became more so after buying the farmhouse with her husband in 1980. Looking to buy a statue for the property, Israel said she ended up buying 40. Shortly thereafter she founded Barbara Israel Garden Antiques and has expanded her purchases and company since.
Scott said the visit to places such as Israel”™s home offers an immeasurable amount of education. “A picture might be worth a 1,000 words,” Scott said, “but being there in person no amount of words can replicate the experience.”
