This property is located in one of the most remote and beautiful sections of the Green Mountains in Northern Vermont. The original architecture dates from the mid 1800's with additions and renovations occurring up through 1996. We were asked to transform a partially completed landscape plan into a complete finishing of the outdoor spaces. Left intact (not shown) are the beautiful perennial gardens and fieldstone dry laid walls along the ceremonial front of the Greek Revival Cape.

A wet swale was transformed into a series of seven pools with sequencing water falls connecting an upper pool by the master bedroom wing to an existing pond located some 250 feet downhill and across a dirt road. The banks of the pond were reshaped to lower and soften the top of bank relationship to the water line. Every stone and boulder seen in these photographs was placed with meticulous care on top of a heavy liner to preserve the water resource which is fed from a nearby mountain stream. Many of the boulders installed in the pondscape are 5 to 8 feet long and took several pieces of coordinated machinery to place. This water is returned to the mountain stream after exiting the pond.

The dry laid walls are made from stone harvested from a bridge construction site along a Vermont State highway that was occurring at the same time as the landscape project. Our goal for the look of the walls was for them to feel foundational in nature, almost as if there might have been buildings sitting on top of the walls at one time. This is in contrast to the organic quality of the stone work of the water feature. Together they complement and enhance the beauty of the natural landforms, give containment to the outdoor rooms formed by the building architecture and suggest that order and ruggedness can be compatible elements in a landscape solution.