"Peace Garden"
Denver Rocky Mountain News
April, 2000

View Garden

Most of us who dwell in the realm of the 14,000 foot peaks have likely never heard of White Tiger Mountain, Dragon Mountain, Turtle Mountain, and Phoenix Mountain.

They are small - none rises more than 15 feet above its surrounting terrain.

But to those fortunate enough to wander amid these flora-strewn, manmade mounds that create 6,000-square foot Valley Where the Devas Dance, the experience borders on magical. (Devas is Sanskrit for spirit.)

And no one knows this better than telecommunications executive Jerome Kern, whose Castle Pines home is the site of the Valley, a stunning and soothing Japanese garden that is a bucolic intersection of earth and water and serenity.

"I love it! How could you not like this?" asks Kern, very rhetorically. "It's fabulous."

So when Kern told Mosko he wanted a Japanese motif, the landscape wizard didn't need to be persuaded. Of course, as he says, "Although the principles are Japanese, we used an American scale. Americans are taller; we're bigger and we sit higher, so the rocks, for instance, have to be much bigger. We used about 1,000 tons of rock in this project."

Another difference is that, "Americans walk through our gardens and play in them. The Japanese mostly sit in the house and watch them.

Ultimately, says Kern, "The vision was clearly Martin's." But the enjoyment is clearly Kern's.