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A client in
the Heights contracted Exterior Worlds to create an Italian
garden with a number of complimentary, classical elements to the
front and rear of their home. Their house had a classic Old
World appearance to it. It was a two-story structure with a
porch and an upstairs balcony. Steps led up to the porch, and
shuttered windows with arched tops lined both the porch and the
balcony. A stately, old, and very large oak tree grew just next
to the house, reaching up and over the top of the house. The
architecture and indigenous landscape were an ideal setting to
further develop a European look and feel to the property.
We began by installing lights in the trees next to the home in
order to illuminate the roof and balcony, and we placed lights
under the eaves of the porch and patio to illuminate the
surfaces, walls, and windows. We planted a small Italian garden
in the front near the trees. In it, we placed a variety of
ground cover plant species, shrubbery, and smaller, ornamental
trees. This lent an organic sense to a very symmetrical and
elegant structure, and helped develop the Classical theme we
were asked to create. We completed the design in the front with
urns placed on either side of the stairs that led up to the
front door. This worked to create a sense of grand entryway that
alluded to a sense of Roman antiquity and classical design.
The home had been built toward the front of the lot, so the
majority of the property lay behind the house. This provided a
great deal of room to develop an Italian garden with a number of
functional and aesthetic elements that fit the lifestyles of the
owners. The first thing we designed for them was a planter,
shaped like a small wall, which surrounded the rear perimeter of
the home. This provided a casual seating area for the home
owners that they use as an overlook point to appreciate the
scenery beyond. In the morning they could sit outside and watch
the sunrise while they drank coffee and talked, or comfortably
recline while they read the paper.
Just a few feet from this planter, we built a
water fountain. We designed it as a rectangle to continue
the movement of the house, because all Italian gardens are
intended to follow the linear movement of architecture and
maintain a sense of order and proportion throughout their
continuity. Although the fountain featured very simple and
compact proportions, we made it look much more dramatic and
prominent by installing four water jets and 4 underwater lights
to draw attention to it in the dark.
Around the fountain we then laid down a paver patio using a
blend of
hardscape and softscape paving. This blended construction
made the patio appear to be fading into the grass, and caused
the patio and surrounding gardens to look more classically
Italian. The patio was surrounded by bull nose coping and sloped
slightly toward the planter walls, which were built with unseen,
1-inch
drain channel to provide a convenient and unobtrusive means
of water runoff. We then filled the space around the new patio
and planter with an Italian garden featuring cypress and
decorative handmade pottery.
At the far end of the property, we completed our project with an
arbor that functioned as a destination for outdoor entertainment
and a terminus for the Italian garden design. The garden arbor
was built on a limestone patio, and was constructed out of
Permacast columns and a cedar top. We installed a ceiling fan
within the arbor, and decorated the patio with tables and chairs
to provide a comfortable gathering place for visiting guests.
One very unique feature was also added to this arbor to complete
its design. This final piece was a mirror built to look like a
window. Because the property bordered a commercial lot that had
a rather unattractive building on it, we wanted to create a
sense of enclosure and provide a focal point that would draw the
eye away from the eyesore behind the arbor. A mirror proved much
more useful for this purpose, because it both blocked the view
of the building, and it magnified the apparent size of the
Italian garden, fountain, planter, and rear of the home.
For more the 20 years
Exterior Worlds has specialized in servicing many of Houston's
fine neighborhoods.
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