Meet The Landscape Architect: Weaving Outdoors With English Country Architecture
When an English Country home has a beautiful location and window filled architecture, you want a thoughtful landscape architect to weave the outside with the interiors.
Castle Homes President Alan Looney called on his long-time collaborative partner, Gavin Duke, Page | Duke Landscape Architects, to create an extraordinary landscape plan for his October Parade of Homes house in the Witherspoon neighborhood of Brentwood, Tennessee.
Home’s Architecture Impacts Landscape Design
Free right of imagination is an important part of our process in working with Castle Homes says Duke as we collaborate and bounce ideas based on the home’s architecture. “It’s always a good collaborative effort when you don’t have to say a lot of words and it is accomplished more gestures and using your pencil and paper,” Duke explains.
As you enter the motor court of the over 6,000 square foot home, the striking bank of windows, inspired by English Architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, sets the Arts & Crafts era tone. The home was designed by Franklin-based architect Kevin Coffey, C. Kevin Coffey Dwellings | Design. Read Meet the Architect.
In designing a landscape plan for an English Country home, Duke said he establishes a certain balance and structure.
Evergreens provide the structure for the plan with small partiers in the boxwoods which creates a layer system where you have structure and flowering elements appearing throughout the seasons. To create an English Country setting, we used heirloom type plants like oaks, boxwoods and yew hedge – elements which would be typically part of this landscape,” Duke said.
Considered a sequence of rooms as he designed the landscape plan, Duke says the project is divided four areas beginning with the arrival court and the foyer garden which introduces the front door and the experience of the entry past the bank of windows. The third area is the lines of the home which bring you to the back terrace and outdoor cooking area. The final area is a friends’ gate with a nearby kitchen garden.
Duke explains more about his inspirational design.
Tour English Country Home
Looney said the future homeowners’ will have the benefit of an award-winning landscape architect designing the stunning landscape plan. “Gavin has done an excellent job of complementing Kevin’s exterior design. When Castle builds a home, there are so many professionals who contribute to the overall design aesthetic setting a Castle home apart as unique and special. This Parade home is another great example,” Looney said.
The fall Pinnacle Financial Partners Parade of Homes opens Saturday, October 7 in the beautiful Witherspoon neighborhood off Crockett Road in Brentwood, Tennessee and runs daily through October 22.
Follow along the build and meet the talented team members helping make Castle Homes return after a decade to the Parade so exciting. Up next, we’ll introduce you to the nationally respected interior designer Rozanne Jackson and her Iron Gate team who are creating the home’s stylish interiors.