1. Le Corbusier may have been one of the designers of the Parisian penthouse of Carlos de Beistegui, the Spanish taste-maker, but it is said that Salvador Dali played a role in his seminal roof terrace. There were Napoleon III-period iron chairs on the lawn and a cast stone commode and fireplace with a circular mirror above it. This Surrealist roof garden seems to have inspired Philippe Starck and many others.
2. Edward James, the British poet and Surrealist fan, spent the last decades of his life creating Las Pozas in Xilitla, Mexico. He oversaw up to 70 laborers in the construction of its 36 concrete structures, including budding flowers, spiral stairs to nowhere, obelisks and bamboolike columns that seem to support only the sky. Though it was never finished, André Breton would be proud of James's archaeological riddle.
3. Dawnridge, the Beverly Hills home and garden of the decorator Tony Duquette, was his greatest creation. One man's trash was Duquette's treasure. As in his life, he was an alchemist, converting banal objects like high power-line insulators into exotic totems. The estate is a monument to his imagination and ingenuity.
4. Since the time of the Greeks, topiary gardens have always been curious, but the the Old Deaf School Park's Topiary Garden, in Columbus, Ohio, is one of the country's most unusual examples. Based on Georges Seurat's ''Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte,'' it features topiary people, dogs, boats, a cat and a monkey. To duplicate the painting's perspective, the foreground figures are taller. Nature imitating art imitating life.
5. At the Creeks at Georgica Pond on Long Island, Alfonso Ossorio spent millions collecting every shade of conifer known to man. Ossorio obsessively arranged and rearranged his trees, layering their shades to create his perfect canvas. He thought nothing of replanting a two-ton evergreen six feet away from its original location, only to move it back the next day.Continue reading the main story