(photos: Steven Gunther)

A series of garden spaces was created to accommodate a family of four and complement an estate from the 1920s - a fragrance garden, the great lawn, a kitchen garden, an Iris walk, a sunken garden, a Thyme walk, and a wild garden. The layout of the front yard addresses the formality of the house. To undermine that formality, bold swaths of exuberant plantings using native trees, shrubs and other Mediterranean material sweep across the landscape. These are delineated by serpentine Myrtle hedges. Each garden includes a constructed element to emphasize an axis and draw one into the space - a fountain, cistern or bench. To tie the house to the landscape, tubular steel and glass canopies were added above featured doors and windows to match those in the garden.