Laurel’s Canyon

A landscape defined by mature plantings, a restrained palette, and enduring stonework.

Set beneath mature olives and heritage oaks in the hills of the East Bay, this residential landscape was designed as a garden-forward extension of the home's shingled architecture — where restraint does the heavy lifting. The planting plan works almost entirely in white and silver: climbing and shrub roses, gaura, lavender, catmint, and drifts of lamb's ear that soften every edge, anchored by clipped boxwood and citrus in custom wood planters near the house. The effect is a garden that reads layered and slightly wild up close, but composed and intentional from a distance.

Circulation moves through a sequence of decomposed granite paths and irregular flagstone landings that step the site through its natural grade changes. Dry-stacked sandstone walls define the terraces and double as seating, while a stone pier and custom wood gate mark the transition from the entry garden into the more private rooms beyond. A weathered peeler-pole fence, threaded with climbing roses and vines, gives the property its boundary without ever reading as a barrier. Low-voltage lighting — copper path fixtures and discreet uplights set into the olive canopy — extends the garden's usable hours and gives the stonework depth after sunset.

Beyond the gate, the landscape opens to lawn and a clean-lined lap pool, edged in stone coping and framed by a clipped hedge that holds the composition quiet against the surrounding trees. Teak lounges, market umbrellas, and a generous dining terrace off the house support everything from a morning swim to a long evening outdoors. This property reflects our design-build philosophy at its most disciplined — where a limited palette, mature specimens, and carefully detailed stone accomplish more than any single feature could. The result is a garden that feels less designed than discovered, embracing the textures and tones of the Northern California landscape a little more with every year it settles in.