Ben Hopkins enters the world of Bangkok based garden guru Bill Bensley

In his book, Paradise by Design, landscape architect Bill Bensley conjures up images from his childhood in Orange County, California during the 1960’s and 70’s. “It was a time when orange trees grew mile after mile and you could smell their heavily scented blossoms all the way to the beach.”

By the time Bill was strong enough to rip out a shrub he was working his family’s large, suburban gar­den on an almost daily basis, and by high school he was transforming the gardens of neighbors, working in a world he escribes as a “riot of color.”

Over three decades later, Bill’s com­pany, the Bangkok based Bensley Design Studios has become a ma­jor brand for client’s that include Four Seasons, Marriott, Sheraton, Oberoi, Pan Pacific and Anantara. His works emerge from nature like landscapes from a child’s imagina­tion. The style is playful and exu­berant, encapsulating an eclectic mix of the baroque and the maxim­ist.

In the lush gardens of the Bensley Design Studios in On Nut, Bang­kok, Bill explains how time has flown by, before diverting his at­tention to a playful Jack Russell and flinging a ball into the garden’s swimming pool. Our photographer snaps the dog in mid-air before it splashes into the pool and retrieves the ball. Bill laughs out loud and describes the journey that led to his life in Bangkok.

“At Harvard I was the youngest in a class of 35 students. The students hailed from all over the world and were a talented bunch, but there was one guy, Lek Bunnag, from Thailand, who stood out from the rest. I actually learnt more from him than I ever learnt from Har­vard.”

Lek Bunnag is today considered one of Asia’s most innovative ar­chitects. “When we graduated in 1984, Lek invited me to stay in Singapore with himself and his wife, Louisa.”

With no solid plans, Bill took up the offer and chose to travel the slow way. “Yeah, I hitch-hiked through Europe on less than $10 a day, it was great fun, but when I eventually landed in Singapore I was completely out of funds.” It’s easy to imagine Bill, the wide eyed backpacker exploring Europe in the way a young child explores a strange garden, discovering its se­crets and pocketing them away for future reference.

The theme of childhood regularly returns in conversation with Bill Bensley, not in a nostalgic sense but with an eye to maintaining a sense of originality untainted by forces that dictate trends and limit original vision. “I don’t believe in trends, what I aim for is to create something timeless,” Bill explains, before adding, “I’ve yet to do one, but that’s what I aim for.”

It’s easy to imagine Bill, the wide eyed backpacker exploring Europe in the way a young child explores a strange garden, discovering its secrets and pocketing them away for future reference.

When ask what he considers to be the fingerprint of his work he ex­plains, “Fire – ever since I was young I’ve loved camping and trekking. I’ve always drawn inspiration from nature. We’d take the tents into the wild, fish and cook by an open fire. I love fire, the way it moves, and the way it dances like a sculpture in motion.”

Fire is an aesthetic element of Bill’s work, but at the root of each creation is a commitment to preserve the force of nature. “Respecting Mother Nature is at the core of everything we do. From the moment we dig into the soil our aim is to have minimal impact, to understand the soil and pay attention to the micro details of each piece of land we work upon.”

To site an example of Bill’s eco-sensitivity, one need look no further than the Four Season’s in Koh Samui. “I was presented with a site a few years ago that had 856 mature coconut palms and a brief to build 80 hotel vil­las,” he recalls. “Today, there are still 856 palms on the site and 80 villas. Coconut palms penetrate the roofs, the decks, even the kitchens. It took 17 trips to the site, and I drove the client, the surveyor and the contrac­tor mad, but it was worth it. The site is still as beautiful as when I first laid eyes on it.”

Again, images from a child’s imagination come to the fore – trees grow­ing in the living quarters, penetrating the roof and exposing the stars. Then suddenly, it comes to me, images from Maurice Sedank’s children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are.” An abiding classic which tells the tale of a boy named Max, scolded by his mother for being wild and sent to bed early. At night trees begin to grow in his bedroom, the ceiling peels away to reveal the stars while his room becomes a forest through which he wonders, before sailing the seas to a strange land “Where the Wild Things Are.” In this land Max is the King.

When I ask him if he’s ever read this book his eyes widen. “Oh yeah, sure, by Maurice Sedank, I love his paintings, for years I’ve been doing paintings based on his style. Children’s books have always had a major influence upon my work.”

At dusk, we leave the garden to the domain of a young boy who’s playing fetch and catch with our canine friend – but even now, Bill can’t resist flinging the ball into the swimming pool once more, before leading us down some steps into his art studio.

“This is where the DNA for our projects take shape,” explains Bill. The studio is like a huge cauldron where ideas simmer and take form. “I em­ploy a large team of extremely talented Thai artists – each and every one of them must be able to draw with their hands.”

In the studio there are huge numbers of drawings, paintings and sculptures, images and objects that permeate the conscious and the sub-conscious. Many of the images and sculptures stand as works of art in their own right, but are cre­ated to form a whole, to blend into a project. “Each of our projects begins with a series of photos of the site upon which we plan to work – these photos represent the DNA of each project. Our artists will take the photos and overlay them with water color paintings, these images can be several meters in length.”

There are around 80 designers from various disciplines; architects, landscape architects, interior architects, fine artists, a lighting designer, horticulturists and drafting technicians working for the Bensley Studios. Every detail, down to the cutlery, is designed by the studio and nothing is used twice.

At present the team is working on about twenty different projects from the Mandarin Oriental in Budapest to the little known Sang Sa Islands in Cam­bodia. All of the designs evoke an otherworldliness where nature flourishes in a in a timeless landscape. The only things missing are King Max and the Wild Things – then again, look hard enough!