Villa Grabau, Villa in San Pancrazio, Lucca, Italy

Villa Grabau is a 16th-century aristocratic residence at San Pancrazio near Lucca, reached by an avenue flanked by tall, geometrically clipped holm oak hedges that splits around an oval lawn. Behind the house, a mosaic-decorated retaining wall with four mask fountains and a balustrade leads up to a garden of two oval beds with lemon pots, a curved holm oak hedge forming an amphitheatre around a circular basin, and a wooded selva with winding paths.

Villa Grabau dates to the 16th century. From 1610 it belonged to the Diodati, then passed to the Gualanducci and the Orsetti; in the 19th century Carlo Ludovico Schwartze bought it and left it to his wife Carolina von Grabau, great-aunt of the present owners. Schwartze's 19th-century renovation removed the terraced gardens in front of the main facade.

The garden's retaining wall is covered in mosaics and carries four wall fountains with mask faces at their centre, topped by a balustrade; two stone dogs flank the gate. Statues of female figures stand where openings in the holm-oak hedge lead into the wooded selvatico, and a turtle with a griffin, once set in the circular basin, sits among its sculptures.

Villa Grabau stands at San Pancrazio, just outside Lucca. Visitors enter along a drive flanked by tall, geometrically clipped holm oak hedges that splits beside an oval lawn. The rear garden sits on a higher level, reached through a gate guarded by two stone dogs, so expect steps and uneven gravel paths.

In the garden's wild section stands a sculpture of a turtle with a griffin, originally placed at the centre of the circular fountain basin. The lemon house on the west side has oval rusticated openings, and the heated greenhouse on the east kept stoves. The box-hedge theatre beside the stables survived the 19th-century changes.