Soliloquy of the Seasons

A heritage property in Cataumet becomes a naturalized estate, embracing each season as a new experience. Scraggy Neck, in the quaint and bucolic village of Cataumet, in the town of Bourne, juts out into Buzzards Bay like an oversized sting ray when viewed from above. An irregular circle of land languishes just outside of the Hog Island Channel and is tethered back to the mainland by what would be the marine creature’s barbed tail. Perhaps because of—or even in spite of—the wild and unruly name the enclave bears, the topography of Scraggy Neck is exactly that—wild, untamed, and ripe with a natural beauty that has become all too rare across the Cape. On the approach to Scraggy Neck, an unexpected and rarefied piece of property, situated at the end of a long disappearing driveway, and perched above Squeteague Harbor, has been transformed into a private botanical garden. The homeowner splits her time between Cataumet during the warm season, and the Bahamas when the Cape winds and temperatures lack the warm embrace of the southwest breeze that makes Buzzards Bay the sailor’s haven it has become. When she acquired the property, it required some improvements to the house, but like so many of the spacious lots on Scraggy, the exterior was a sprawling mass of scrub, brambles and overgrown trees. Knowing that the quiet harbor, walking trails to Lawrence Island, and the breathtaking vista down the bay to the Elizabeth Islands was somewhere on the other side of that tangle, she yearned to tame her space. “I was really missing out on the view, yet, I didn’t want an overly manicured and exposed landscape,” she shares. “I knew I wanted to keep the natural beauty the area offers, but make it more interesting and accessible.” Paul Miskovsky of Miskovsky Landscaping in…