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Landscape Design Consulting
Curated Landscapes For Outdoor Living
Secret Garden | Darien, CT
Landscape Architect | Landscape Design Consulting | Outdoor Living | Darien, Connecticut | Project video featuring a luxury in-ground pool, retaining walls and stairs, terraced gardens with native, ornamental, and edible plantings, and custom landscape lighting for an artist's studio and secret garden. Smash the play button to view and learn more.
Owner Testimonial: "I am in the service industry and have very high standards with regard to how a paying customer should be treated. My wife and I hired Landscape Design Consulting to design a swimming pool, and various landscape features, for our property during the pandemic - a time when it was next to impossible to get anything done. As a designer and project manager, Sean has the remarkable ability to see everything at once and think several steps ahead to avoid obstacles while maintaining forward momentum. He was always available to speak on the phone, meet in-person, or drop everything to recover one of the many fumbles (caused by others) during the process. Sean treated us as if we were his only clients, thus providing a level of service that is unheard of today. He is passionate about his work, knowledgeable and professional, and highly skilled - not only as a landscape architect that designs beautiful outdoor living spaces, but as someone who can expedite the permitting process, and manage the project through all phases to completion.” - Paul S.
Above: A pictorial sequence showing the transformation from an existing pre-designed site to a stunning outdoor living space. Dramatically sloping property and a compact, tough-to-access work area - along with outcrops of rock - presented a unique set of design challenges and logistical complexities for construction.
Above: The roadway below can be seen towards the upper right-hand corner of the first image. Also note how the roof on the gable end of the existing residence is nearly at grade on the uphill side. Collectively, these conditions illustrate how the project location is elevated, tucked into a hillside, and completely private - thereby qualifying as a secret garden.
Above: Whereas the layout and alignment of the pool is designed to express the more formal qualities of the existing residence and artist's studio, the gestural retaining wall forms an organic relationship with the undulating hillside. In this manner, the curated landscape connects people to place by softening the boundary between built and natural.