The Napiers are no strangers to tackling a project, but the greenhouse and garden Ben built for his wife, Erin, and their young daughters, Helen and Mae, was especially personal. “We both want our kids to grow up with a love of gardening,” he says. “We want them to know how to do all the stuff our parents and the generations before them did. It was a big part of growing up and feels like something that has been lost in the last couple of decades.”

The inspiration for the structure (which was revealed as a Mother’s Day surprise on the Napiers‘ HGTV show Home Town last spring) first struck when the couple renovated the property’s barn a few years ago. “We had to replace the doors, so suddenly I had these pieces of wood that I didn’t want to just throw out,” says Ben, who incorporated them into the greenhouse’s siding.

To align with the existing architecture of the family’s Laurel, Mississippi, farm, every element of the building was carefully and sustainably considered, even down to how it was set into the slope of the land for seamless entry. “Erin is an incredible designer with a great eye, so I knew it had to be beautiful, which was the hard part for me,” says Ben, who jokes that otherwise he would have “thrown up a shed with windows and called it a day.”

Made with Memories

Ben spent a couple of years gathering materials. “Every detail was very intentional. It’s the only way I do things,” he says. Nods to the location are woven in throughout. Reclaimed windows from Home Town projects and from structures that were original to the property are complemented by stained glass from their friend John Whitt of Sweetwater Studios just outside Laurel. The checkerboard flooring is made up of repurposed granite and marble countertop remnants from an area stone shop. The siding and framing feature wood milled in Ben’s own Scotsman Manufacturing workshop. “I wanted the interior to be very deconstructed, like a shed on the inside,” he says. “Using cypress was important for that; it’s beautiful and lasts longer.” For a cohesive look and to match their home, he painted the exterior Sherwin-Williams’ Night Owl (SW 7061).

The greenhouse also comes with a built-in narrative. “Everything, even down to the raised beds themselves, tells a story,” says Ben, who used timber from Smith Brothers Forest Products sawmill, where he had his first job. The woodworker also crafted the white oak tables inside and garden gates for the stacked-stone walls. “I’m obsessed with the English countryside and farms in Scotland, so I made gates that mimicked ones I’d seen in the Cotswolds,” he says.

As a reference to where the couple honeymooned, he bought New York City park benches from Kenneth Lynch & Sons—the patriarch of the company originally designed them as seating for the 1939 World’s Fair. “Erin said, ‘I want a bench out under the tree to watch the girls climb.’ So I started researching, because I wanted something real that would be here forever. Somehow, I stumbled onto reading about the ones in Central Park,” he explains.

“Most important, there are railing pieces from Titanic!” says Erin, who saw the film 13 times in theaters when it premiered. “My dad and I even built a model Titanic together. I was obsessed, mostly with the music.” She was able to relive those memories during the 25th-anniversary rerelease, but it just made Ben curious about what had happened to the movie’s set after it was dismantled. He tracked down some salvaged pieces that were for sale and bought nine metal stanchions. “They’re all cast iron and built exactly the way they were on the boat originally,” says Ben, who incorporated the railing posts into the fencing. “For Erin, that’s the coolest thing, but for me, it’s the Central Park benches.”

Sentimental Plantings

When planning the landscaping, Ben enlisted the help of James Farmer, who lent his design know-how, and Emily Grohovsky, founder of Cedar Hill Gardens, who developed a gardening calendar for the region. “She broke down what fruits and vegetables grow, including when to plant them from seeds or transplants, when to start seeds indoors, and when they are ready to harvest and place in beds,” he says. “She has been the greatest resource and an inspiration.”

Alongside a variety of seasonal herbs and produce, Ben incorporated some sentimental choices: ‘Limelight’ hydrangeas, which Erin carried for her wedding bouquet; Japanese maples, because they’re her favorite trees; and sweet olives for their beloved scent. And since no detail is too small to consider, he grew ‘Peggy Martin’ roses along the fence. “Because in Titanic, Rose climbed up on the rail, so you’ve got to have roses on the railing,” he says with a laugh. For the girls, they added blackberry bushes, pear trees, and a wide array of blooms. “They love to make bouquets for friends. When people are coming over for dinner, they’ll pick flowers for our guests without us asking,” says Erin.

“At this point, we’re just piquing their curiosity,” says Ben, recalling the first time they planted and harvested anything—a pack of radish seeds the girls had chosen, claiming to love them. (Erin thinks it was because they were pink.) We dug them up, washed them off, and they both started eating them before quickly saying, ‘I don’t like them.’ That was fine, though, because they tried them.” She says that, for now, the girls can be found “watering everything in the mornings, picking flowers when it’s time, eating snow peas off the vine, and checking for strawberries popping up.”