Back to Villa del Greco, this time to talk about how the garden’s new fountains came to be. The courtyard and wall fountains were from a renovation that took place in the 1990s, while the home was from the 1920s. As I previously mentioned, the owner was keen on restoring as many original details of… Read More
Today’s guest post is written by former Garden Design editor Sarah Ristorcelli, who is working on an outdoor living book for Timber Press. What are origins? Somebody somewhere did something for their own personal use or enjoyment and the word never got out, or it got out incrementally, or a version of the story became a legend.… Read More
When I read the New York Times April coverage of our California drought, I thought it posed a fair question: What will life in California be like in the years ahead? But the article implied that it’s Jerry Brown’s mandate that we reduce our water consumption by 25% that’s raising this question, and I can’t agree. The… Read More
In my last post, I talked about my initial meeting with our client and her home, Villa del Greco, and how we made a list of issues to address, chief among them creating a welcoming and unambiguous approach to the front door. When I first visited the site, I found – literally – that you… Read More
I’d like to share some of the gardens we’ve built – not just to show off the results of our work, which I’m very proud of – but to give you a window into our world and the process of designing and building a great garden. We’ve designed and built a lot of gardens over… Read More
I’ve been designing and building gardens in Santa Barbara for 30+ years (yikes – where does the time go???). We live in our gardens here – the climate is that mild – and we aim for a seamless blend of inside and outside. And because the scenery is the main act, we want everything to… Read More