Modern Farmhouse Landscape - Mequon, WI

2022 Bronze Award Residential Design - Association of Professional Landscape Designers

Our clients were building this new modern farmhouse in Mequon, Wisconsin after moving from Chicago. With it being new construction, we has a blank slate when it came to designing this whole yard landscape. We created a master plan that could be implemented in phases, allowing our clients some economic flexibility after building their new home.

For the entrance to the property, we designed natural stone piers to go with the existing fence on the property. House numbers and lighting help guests to find the right house. Our clients wanted a modern landscape to go with the home so the design theme was based on rectalinear geometry. Concrete was chosen for all the paved areas for a modern aesthetic with beach pebble runnels. Natural stone garden walls were designed to frame the front landscaping. To emphasize the entrance to this modern farmhouse, a courtyard was designed with a panel of full range bluestone surrounded by an inlay of beach pebbles. Rectalinear plant beds carry the modern theme around the landscape with many varieties of ornamental grasses and long blooming perennials. Boxwoods and hydrangeas make up the bulk of the shrubs.

Concrete with beach pebble runnels was used for the main patio space in the backyard. There are areas for grilling, dining and lounging. Our clients asked for a modern pergola in tune with the rest of the landscape. The cedar pergola is stained almost black making a dramatic statement. Our clients love birch trees so a planting bed with a linear group of river birch cuts into the concrete patio to help define two separate spaces. Birch were also planted as part of the front portion of the design.

With a partial exposure on the home on the east side of the property, the grade change necessitated that we landscape the slope with plant beds, outcropping stone and stone steps. A bluestone stepper path connects the patio to the steps leading down to another area of the backyard. On the west side of the property, we designed a separate fire pit patio. Unlike the rest of the paved areas in this landscape which are concrete, the fire pit patio is paved in full range natural bluestone. Rectangular plant beds and bluestone steppers pinwheel around the space. A radial cut, natural stone fire pit sits within a cut out in the bluestone, surrounded by beach pebbles. Low voltage, landscape lighting with custom colored fixtures completes the design.