This summer, a two-day horticulture event and fund-raiser at the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, New York, put a spotlight on one of the most compelling aspects of modern-day garden design: the relationship between indoors and out. A group of celebrated interior designers was invited to speak and open their gardens for a tour at a symposium titled Landscape Pleasures. The museum, founded in 1898, celebrates the artistic legacy of Long Island’s East End and has become an important repository of the works of artists who lived and worked in the area—Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Dan Flavin—as well as important pieces from the contemporary art world.

The three gardens featured in this slide show represent the broad range of styles on display at the Parrish event. And the stories behind each of their construction demonstrate how the owners bring fascinating, inspiringly counterintuitive strategies to exterior design.

Left: The work of William Sofield.