Client:

Private Residence

Category:

Residential Design

Influenced by prairie landscape, the landscape architect embraced the homestead by understanding the family members and their lifestyle to create a living environment that uses natural materials and native plants in a dramatic way.

An existing terrain featuring a babbling brook running through an oak savanna transitioning into open, rolling fields is complemented by plantings kept in very low, simple and broad sweeps. Vertical accents are used sparingly to break up the strong horizontality of the home. Flowering meadows are shaped to create a sense of visual rhythm and flow from the house in to the woodland border. A plant palette has its roots in the northern Illinois oak savanna with woody plant species such as Hawthorn, Sumac and Oak and herbaceous plants chosen for their texture, color and distastefulness to the neighborhood deer population. Nine feet of hillside was carved away to nestle a pool, hot tub, outdoor kitchen and fire pit into the surrounding topography. Terraced limestone outcroppings and plantings allowed to grow over and in between the outcrops provide a transition from hardscape to the landscape and bring the meadow up to the edge of the pool deck. Special garden rooms including a cutting garden, children’s vegetable garden and a secret garden as well as a stone bridge developed along the entry road also add to the dramatic landscape.