This page and opposite: Eckley’s clients asked him to turn a sloped area below the “martini deck” into a dog-friendly landscape for their two rambunctious golden retrievers. Called the “East terraces,” the dog run features easy-care faux turf and an on-demand water bowl. Eckley’s experience with detailed stonework is apparent in the low walls, the tops of which are planted with hardy succulents. Over time, these resilient plants will cascade over the stone to give it a timeless feeling.
ensured that everyone was referring to the same place for planning purposes, but soon the labels morphed into charming descriptions of the emotional experience each offered. Eckley reconfigured outdoor destinations to better relate to their corresponding indoor rooms—including a nowgracious entry garden, a sunken patio where a gentle rill of water streams from a stainless-steel channel into a granite receptacle (“champagne courtyard”) and a living room–sized deck with a fire table at its center (“martini deck”). Two upper decks became the “salsa garden,” where zesty edibles grow in pots, and the “San Diego deck,” a private place for husband and wife to relax. Streamlined furnishings and impactful plantings relate one area to the next. Eckley specified nearly black, all-weather rattan furniture and worked with a custom fabricator to design a sleek black bench with a geometric cast-aluminum base for the home’s entry. The plantings are mostly evergreen: soothing and un-fussy swaths of lily turf and Mt. Vernon laurel line the entry walk and draw the eye to a massive copper-hued vessel containing
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a sculptural Japanese stewartia tree. The water-facing deck has a beachy touch thanks to drifts of bronze carex, an ornamental grass with metallic hues. Two weathered-steel planters contain specimen-sized full-moon Japanese maple trees, which are up-lit at night. A textural flower and foliage tapestry brightens the champagne courtyard, where raised stone and COR-TEN steel planters bring orange-red, dark pink, purple, yellow, and blue hues to eye level, in all four seasons. “It’s their special gemlike moment of color, energy, and beauty,” Eckley says. Indeed, for his clients, the new landscape is a beneficent gift to celebrate their life together. Eckley and his crew completed the renovations just weeks before the owners were married last September—in an intimate, garden wedding. “We got married on the martini deck with the trees in the backdrop acting like a kind of natural chapel,” the wife says. “We couldn’t imagine a more magical location.” Author Debra Prinzing is an outdoor living expert. She produces, writes, and speaks about architecture, interiors, gardens, and floral design. Her work can be viewed at debraprinzing.com.