Nashville, Tennessee
My design experiences are wide-ranging. I lived in New York City and the Hudson Valley for many years. While in the city I designed custom furniture and interiors for multi-national corporations. On the weekends in the Hudson Valley, I restored 19thC houses for myself and for clients. It was also in that beautiful setting that I became interested in the relationship between architecture and the supporting landscape.
After moving home to Nashville I opened a boutique garden ...
Family Room looking toward Kitchen
Stone and clapboard siding arrive.
Back of house, December 2009.
Main screened porch interior.
Main screened porch interior.
Master bedroom screened porch.
Master porch vaulted ceiling.
Leaded glass and mahogany stair window.
Living room beamed ceiling being trimmed.
Back terrace under construction.
Back of house, December, 2009
The house is on a very high hill up a driveway with 6 switchbacks and a vertical drop of 500 feet.
The 25m lap pool is seen from every room in the house.
The entrance is through oak gates, along an arched portico, adjacent to the pool.
The front door is mahogany with leaded glass; the stair winds up the tower.
The living room ceiling is cypress.
The plaster hood is the focal point of the kitchen.
There's a fireplace with a raised hearth in the kitchen.
The pantry is also a clean-up ktichen and the laundry.
The minimalist master bath has the shower integrated in the room.
Custom iron fencing, historically appropriate.
Secure, landscaped parking off the alley.
Retaining wall gives visual separation to the cars.
Custom brickwork and locust fencing.
Bursts of color everywhere!
Walking around the garden was like experiencing snapshots of Palladio and Italian gardens.
The design was meant to evoke, not copy.
Sherbie Green's workshop built the structures.
Watching it come together was half of the fun!
Pam Harness and the "Swan Ball Painters" did the faux stone finishes.
Spanish lavender forced by Deborah and Mark Taylor.
We replaced windows and simplified them, then painted them dark bronze.
The house didn't have a casual family room, so we added onto the back.
The back also got a nice small terrace with limestone details.
The new room transformed the way the owners use the house.
Both seating and dining were included in the new addition.
The wraparound windows give the new room great views of Sugartree Creek.
House 1 enters at street level, then descends to the living room.
House 1 living room looking back toward stairs.
House 1 living room looking toward garden and pool.
A seasonal streambed wound through the small back garden.
What was a rough bank became a walkable rock garden.
The rock garden overlooks an oval lawn.
Annabelle hydrangeas, perennials and boxwoods surround the lawn.
This is the bridge over the dry creek bed.
The seasonal streambed was trashed and full of rock and branches.
This is the wasteland we started with.
Original 2-story house with new addtions
New stone chimney on family room
Rear of master wing looking toward kitchen wing
The client wanted a stone-lined, natural pool. It is 45' long and freeform.
The house was tall, so we designed an arbor to suit: it is 17 feet tall.
There's lots of color at the front entrance.
From the 8-person spa down a watercourse to the pool and then another watercourse to a koi pond, the feature is 100 feet long.
The watercourse from the spa into the pool.
We designed a dining terrace and arbor away from the house with details to match the main arbor.
