Upon completion of a handsome garage to complement their Bob Burly designed home in Essex, NY, our clients approached us wanting a plan to merge the garage with the house.
Our design begins with a bluestone walk connecting the porch of the residence to the garage. We graded this walk to offer a compelling view of stone stairs from the porch and added a landing to soften the climb. At the top of the stairs is a small stone cocktail patio overlooking the eastern pastoral views backed by Lake Champlain and Camel’s Hump. This walk creates a strong axis and an edge used to define where woodland ends, the house begins, and the meadow follows. The eastern border of the walk and patio are meadow-themed gardens of ornamental grasses and summer blooming perennials.
The front garden mimics woodlands by extending the edge of the forest to the house, incorporating the house into the existing woodland setting.
Adding a curve and shifting the driveway west away from the house towards the woodland focused attention to the landscape and views and created more space for the woodland-themed plantings adjacent to the house.