Nestled in the hills of Menton, Serre de la Madone was created between 1924 and 1939 by Lawrence Waterbury Johnston (1871–1958), a Franco-American botanist, explorer, and garden designer. He was born in 1871 to wealthy American parents. After becoming a British citizen in 1900 he enlisted in the army and set off to join British forces fighting the Boers in South Africa. Here he became interested in the plant kingdom, and would spend countless hours browsing in libraries and devouring every botanical textbook he could find.

Johnston is best known for his masterpiece at Hidcote Manor in Gloucestershire, England, a pioneering example of the Arts and Crafts garden style. The property was purchased in 1907 and Johnston would spend the next 17 years bringing Hidcote to its full glory. Learn more about Hidcote here.

Not satisfied with one masterpiece, he set out to find a suitable environment for his more fragile flora, where he could acclimatize sub-tropical and tropical plants. It was the exceptionally mild climate of Menton that drew him there, and to a site that consisted of farmland and woods, and had never before been used for horticulture.

Between 1924 and 1935 Johnston was to acquire ten plots of land, some of them with a house and outbuildings, in order to assemble a single property that occupied the entire slope of the hillside.

Over these years, he set about transforming the agricultural terraces and olive groves into a sophisticated botanical retreat. His aim: to acclimatize rare and exotic plants collected during his global expeditions and to display them in intimate, scenographic spaces blending Mediterranean design with subtropical exuberance.

After his death in 1958, his masterpiece changed hands several times and progressively fell into a period of neglect. The Conservatoire du Littoral acquired the property in 1999, and in partnership with the city of Menton and the Association pour la sauvegarde des jardins d’exception du Mentonnais, is restoring it to Johnston’s original vision.

Johnston’s vision combined horticultural experimentation with artistic sensibility. Inspired by Italian garden architecture, he introduced pergolas, staircases, fountains, and terraces, integrating water features and structural plants to create a harmonious rhythm of enclosed garden “rooms”.

Each area of the garden offered a different atmosphere, color palette, or seasonal spectacle. Johnston traveled extensively — to the Drakensberg mountains, the slopes of Kilimanjaro, the fynbos of the Cape, the forests of the Yunnan — and returned with seeds, cuttings, and new ideas. His notebooks, letters, and travel diaries show a meticulous interest in site conditions, altitudes, and flowering times.