Architect:

Booth Hansen

Contractors:

Mariani Enterprises; Masonry by Fernando; Lightscape, Inc.

Category:

Residential Design

Something Old, Something Bold. When a suburban Chicago couple decided to build their dream home next to Illinois' oldest golf course, the challenge for Evanston's Douglas Hoerr Landscape Architecture was to marry the straight-edged, minimalist style of the home's architect to the surrounding land's lush, gently rolling hills.

An interior courtyard garden, visible only upon entering the house or unlocking a farm-style gate, acts as a sculpture that takes its cues from the tall lines of the home's floor-to-ceiling windows. Three linear blocks of sheared boxwood intersect a circular band of granite cobbles set flush with the courtyard's gravel surface. A dining area under a bosque of native Kentucky coffee trees behind the house provides panoramic views of gardens on one side and the greater landscape beyond.

Outside, gently rolling mounds of earth were created in the property nearest the golf course to echo the course's topography, with walking paths between the hills imitate fairways through the rough. Borrowing from the home's contemporary architecture, a raised terrace of granite boulders forms the transition between the shaped turf areas and more intimate garden spaces closer to the house.

The landscape architect persuaded the architect to reroute the entry drive to take full advantage of the site. The driveway, which establishes the property's connection to the golf course by winding through the earth mounding, takes visitors all the way past the house so the architecture can first be experienced from the car. Visitors are then led through a front entry garden to the home's covered front entry.