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The landscape of this contemporary home invites you to step through the gate. Cobble paths just beyond the boxwood hedge grow into a radial vehicular drop-off, with wide granite steps taking you up to the home’s “barn doors”. The front maintains a restrained planting to evoke the simple look of the area’s historic farmsteads. This project won a 2004 gold award from the Pennsylvania Landscape and Nursery Association. |
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In contrast to the simple front dropoff, the street entry abounds with perennials and ornamental grasses. The cobble “welcome mat” of paving is a typical amenity in this neighborhood; stone piers and walls bring the home’s unique architecture out to the street. |
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Coming up the driveway you pass a formal herb and flower garden, setting off its weathered armillary. |
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The architect had placed the rear, three-story elevation of the house against the grading, i.e. into the high side of an existing slope. To create the illusion of a bank barn set into the hill, ample space in front of the rear elevation was excavated out; 50 feet into the hillside. |
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The resulting eight-foot-high cuts were retained by wrapping the stone masonry walls of the house around the space to form a courtyard open at one end. This area became the rear patio. We punctuated this space with a raised millstone fountain set at the convergence of rough stone bands, which were designed to suggest a spring and old drainage channels. |
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Detail of rough stone steps. |
