Years ago I worked on a magazine’s annual show home project. If you’ve ever built a show house, you’ll understand that it was on an impossibly fast track. Out of necessity, the architect’s design process would seriously overlap with construction. It was a breathless race to get the house built and furnished in time to shoot photography for the magazine. We’d think we had everything taken care of, when someone would remember that we needed to bring in the landscape architect. By then, the budget was busted.
Many landscape architects know what it means to be at the bottom of the food chain on a custom home project—their budgets often are eaten up before the home is built by change orders and construction contingencies. Fortunately, they are a resourceful, talented group of professionals. The ones I worked with always made the site look great despite a ravaged budget.
That saved the day, because there’s no way you can make a house look good if the grounds look bad. That’s true not only of houses that appear in magazines, but also of every house you build. When the landscape architect is in on planning and design from the start, and when his or her contribution is respected and realized, house and site can come together in a magical way. The owners can inhabit their site completely, enjoying a landscape that graces their home with beautiful views and outdoor spaces and amenities that enlarge and enhance their lives every day.
