My friends know I am a PRINT person – I love magazines, newspapers and books. I’m kind of okay with the Internet, because blog posts and web sites still involve using letters to compose words and words to create sentences . . . all of which are ultimately read as the printed word.

So this week has been one of those out-of-the-comfort-zone experiences as I “played” at being a television host. Robert Schauf, my amazing and intuitive producer, keeps telling me that talking to the camera is just like talking to a friend (a conversation!). . . and I’m starting to believe him. I just have to imagine all my friends hiding behind the HUGE black lens held by the cute camera guy, John. And then, just talk. Naturally.

Okay, I need to back up. I met Robert Schauf in 2006. It was one of those Kismet moments. It will sound so cliche, but we met on an airplane flying on business class from Burbank to Newark (a Jet Blue flight). I’m pretty unfamiliar with business class, but somehow I was bumped up to that rarefied section because it was the last seat on an overbooked flight. I was on my way to speak to a garden club in New Jersey and absolutely had to make that flight or I would miss the lecture entirely.

Robert, who hops comfortably back and forth between NYC and LA, was returning from a business trip. How do I describe him? He’s tall and slender, he wears the kind of clothing that my teenage son might wear (hip jeans, long-sleeved t-shirts, lace-up Keds) and his shocking white-platinum hair kind of sticks out all over his head. Robert has that Rocker-dude look and frankly I didn’t know what to think of him at first. But we talked nonstop for something like 5-1/2 hours. I was so fascinated with his stories of producing television specials and working on the Grammys. I told him about my new project – about garden sheds! – and described my plans to scout sheds in the Hamptons and NYC after I finished my New Jersey lecture. We exchanged business cards and subsequently swapped a few emails. That was it.

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Designers Scott Shrader and Julie Millgan are friends who teamed up to produce a fantastic garden party for GARDEN DESIGN Magazine’s March 2009 issue (on newsstands now). I am the fortunate scribe who was asked to tell the story of their “Sunset Soiree” (which is what I titled the 10-page article). A great shot of Scott Shrader’s custom fire table appears on the cover of the magazine.

Here’s the background: Scott designed the outdoor living spaces of a modified A-frame midcentury beach house owned by Rea Laccone and Paul Perla, a style-savvy couple who run the casual fashion line called Vince USA.

When the project was completed, Rea and Paul suggested that Scott invite a few friends and clients to “show off” the project and celebrate. He took them up on it and recruited Julie Milligan, herself a fave Garden Design landscape designer, to produce and co-host the party.

Garden Design sent along Jack Coyier, a great photographer (this is my third article illustrated by Jack’s photographs – his images also accompany a piece Metropolitan Home’s March issue and last September’s Garden Design cover story about Ron Radziner’s garden in Venice). Through his lens, Coyier captures the playful, carefree nature of the space, the event, the people and the food — with gorgeous shots.

Even though this is an outdoor entertaining piece, the story naturally centers around its designed environment and the oceanside setting. Buy the magazine in order to really feast your eyes on the photos. Or read it here, on my web site: Sunset Soiree.

For the student of landscape design, this project offers several important take-aways. This is not a plant-centric space, so some hort-heads may scoff that Garden Design actually describes it as a “garden.”

But by designing with stone, textiles, elements like fire and water – and plants – Scott has created a magnetic reason for his clients to spend time outdoors.

And isn’t that the point, the mission of everyone in the garden-making world? To advocate for the role of exterior design and put it on par (or even elevate it!) with architecture and interior design? Scott has hit a home run with this project.

Even though you’d think it would be awesome to live by the beach (who wouldn’t?), there are some pretty harsh conditions here to challenge a homeowner and designer alike. The extremes range from intense sunlight and heat to intense wind and chilly temperatures. So the design thoughtfully accommodates the elements and helps protects those who spend time in the outdoor spaces.

To begin with, the home’s entry area (the non-ocean side) was really just a jumble of grass and an aging deck. Scott reconfigured these “negative” volumes to form a spacious outdoor living room. It doubles as the entry courtyard, enclosed on four sides. Two sides are created by the “L” of the home; new walls form the other two sides (one wall has a rustic wood entry gate; the other is the backdrop to a linear pool of water level with the “floor” of the space). The courtyard is by no means dark because sunlight flows through the beach house. Glass walls on the home’s west and east sides give the home a see-through quality.

On the western side of Rea and Paul’s house is a serene sunset-viewing terrace. When the winds die down, the couple adjourns to this partially-covered outdoor room. Sinking into comfy armchairs, they can prop their feet up on the versatile basalt table-bench-firepit and watch the orange-red orb disappear beyond the Pacific’s horizon. A lone palm tree – part of the borrowed scenery – adds a bit of perspective to the scene.

Here are some of Scott’s the smart design ideas:

• Palette: Inspired by the fashion colors in the Vince clothing line, Scott worked with a range of gray hues (this means a monochromatic use of pewter-colored basalt, aluminum planter boxes and smoke-gray cushion/pillow fabric choices). Shrader translated Vince’s spectrum of warm-toned neutrals – ranging from dove-gray to dark gunmetal – into a tranquil and unified garden environment.  “If you look at the Vince clothing line, you see warm grays. I wanted to use that palette and keep things minimal and clean to reflect Rea and Paul’s  life,” he says.
• Function: This is not just a pretty space to observe from an indoor vantage point. The courtyard has multiple functions, with a U-shaped chaise providing incredibly generous seating (what do I mean by the term “generous”? I can easily imagine several intimate clusters of two or three friends in intense conversation OR 20 hipsters for pre-dinner drinks). But what I like most, as I said in the article, is that Scott created a cozy, curl-up-your-feet kind of space. When there are gusts of wind at the shore, this space is protected; blocked mostly by the home’s architecture.
• More Function comes by way of the 6-by-6 foot coffee-table cum buffet-counter. It is the most utilitarian element of this setting. Hidden castor wheels enable its movement, rolling in-and-out of the “U” seating area. Custom designed by Scott Shrader and fabricated of weathered teak (very beachy), the chunk of wood is earthy and durable. Piled with beverages and hors d’oeuvres during the photo shoot, it earned its weight in gold.
• Even More Function is revealed in the basalt-wrapped fire feature, pictured on Garden Design’s cover. The heat source doubles as a cocktail table and bench. Its flames are mesmerizing; you can get even closer to the warmth by perching on the ledge. “This part of the garden is fairly limited in size, so I wanted to give it a warm element and make it a generous gathering space,” Scott says.

Where plants are used in this landscape, they serve as architectural and sculptural purposes. The opening shot of the magazine spread depicts one of Scott’s guests as she walks through a hallway of green (which creates a maze-like journey from entry courtyard to oceanside terrace). The hedge-walls are formed by clipped Carolina laurel cherry (Prunus caroliniana). Simple and dramatic. So much more exciting than a few stepping stones that could serve a similar, but ordinary purpose.

Just inside the front gate is another beautiful and functional feature – a basalt counter that acts as a foyer table. On it, Scott placed a potted bonsai of boxwood. It has just as much presence as if he put a small ornament or sculpted object instead. Phormiums and agaves also lend sculptural form; they are mulched with Japanese black river rock, which looks sleek, modern, and works with the overall slate-gray palette.

Finally, there are two private miniature gardens outside the guest bedrooms. Scott treated these spaces as still-lifes; he called them “planted beach” scenes. Grasses and phormiums emerge from a salt-and-pepper mixed gravel carpet. A stone bench, planted with a moss “seat” is quiet and meditative in feeling. I can understand the sense of calm that settles over Rea and Paul when they escape here after an intense week in the city. This is another world altogether.

I ended the article with this paragraph:

To Rea and Paul, the Malibu getaway is one of the only places they can relax and unwind. Rea loves the “boundary-less environment” that encourages her to easily move from indoor spaces to the open-air ones. “Sometimes we quietly sneak out here by ourselves,” Rea says. Yet she’s happy to welcome friends, even during sweater weather. “How lucky am I? “Paul and I are both from New England, so we couldn’t be more excited to live near the ocean and where we need our sweaters.”

So, you can tell that I loved this garden and I certainly loved writing about it!

If you’ve been following Shed Style for any period of time, by now, you know that I use the term “SHED” quite broadly to describe “a shelter in the garden.”

And so, here are two very different, but equally enticing, glimpses of garden shed architecture that I had the good fortune to tour earlier this week. The occasion: a preview of the Feb. 28th study tour that Betsy Flack of Garden Conservancy has designed to accompany the Feb. 27th seminar: Gardens that Re-Make Themselves.

The seminar will examine the restoration of historic gardens to reflect the original architecture and period, as well as sustainable design practices that today’s garden makers can use to ensure their landscapes endure for future generations. Several really incredible established gardens, mostly in Pasadena, will be open to seminar participants who take the study tour.

The garden structures I visited are relatively new, but they were designed – in the spirit and character of the property’s origins – to fit into older landscapes .

“M’s” Garden House stands at the back of a long, narrow garden in an historic Pasadena neighborhood.

The 1926 residence, a one-story Mediterranean-style bungalow, is situated near the front of the 50-by-195 foot lot. Because her house is closer to the sidewalk, the parcel behind the house is very park-like. She has preserved and enhanced the original hard-scape and bones of this Italian-inspired garden. It is truly amazing to see the setting and realize it is 83 years old.

At the far end of the garden path stands a scallop-topped swinging gate. According to the owner, the gate originally led to an old tool shed for garden storage.

But she had other plans for this underutilized space and asked her architect to design a garden structure in keeping with the garden’s vintage.

Hugh Maguire, an architect who does work in Pasadena and Palm Springs, designed the 11-by-13 foot structure in1995. “I had seen an old English train station ‘storefront’ at a salvage place in Pasadena,” Maguire told me when I contacted him by phone. “It had the words ‘Waiting Room’ on it”

He thinks the fanciful storefront dates to the 19th century.

Maguire discovered it years ago at Across the Street from Alice, a Mission Street salvage dealer and has had his eye on it ever since.

M’s request for a garden structure presented the perfect opportunity to use the beautiful architectural element with mullioned windows, an arched transom and detailed mill-work panels. Maguire spent around $1,200 for the salvaged facade. “Can you image what it would cost to have something like this custom made?” he asked me. No, I can’t. And that’s why I love it when designers and builders utilize materials from the past. Salvaged architectural fragments are a high art form when it comes to shed-making.

In order to build this pleasing space, a “collapsed shed” was removed. However, architect and client salvaged doors from the old structure and recycled them as cupboard doors on interior bookcases. In between the bookcases is a perfect-circle porthole window. It echoes the perfect-circle recycled brick “carpet” that now serves as the garden foyer to the little house.

On top of the new stucco building, Maguire added a standing seam metal roof. In one corner of the four-sided roof that caps the garden house, they had to make a cut-out – to accommodate a stately eucalyptus tree that M did not want disturbed by the construction. That’s showing serious concern for her garden and the plants she inherited!

Using local Arroyo Seco river rock for the foundation and side wall (notice the wonderful niches that allow for pedestal candles – imagine how meditative this space will feel at twilight!) and leaving the structure covered, but open-sided, the design is a study in native, organic architecture.

According to Carol, when the gazebo’s construction was completed, the builder, stone mason and architect gathered with the Kings for a Bento box lunch “to bless it.”

“We all sat here and were very conscious that this would be a sacred place,” she told me.

In a magnificent book about Buff and Hensman’s architectural careers, the structure is described as a “lineal redwood gazebo” . . . “conceived as a refuge.”

A refuge indeed. No one could wish for a better way to experience sanctuary, solace, spiritual respite and beauty.

Here are a few more images:

 

“Pacific Heights,” my story about a stunning garden in Malibu, California, owned by Oscar-winning director and screenwriter Frank Pierson and his wife Helene, appears in the March issue of Metropolitan Home magazine.

You can find the issue on the newsstands now, even though it’s still early February. I posted the full story on my website.

Designed by landscape architect Pamela Palmer of Venice-based ARTECHO, the garden employs curves, spirals and arcs, rendered in an ocean-blue palette. It is dreamy and contemplative and makes the most of the garden’s very best feature: its Endless Horizon.

Frank Pierson is a consummate storyteller. His writing credits include “Cat Ballou” with Jane Fonda and “Dog Day Afternoon” with Al Pacino (which earned him an Oscar). He directed Barbra Streisand in “A Star is Born” and is the former president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

He may have an office indoors, but some of Frank’s most inspiring narratives are conceived while sitting at the edge of his curved infinity lawn and gazing at the Pacific Ocean.

Frank and Helene’s modest, triangular slice of paradise is perched on a Malibu hillside. The couple purchased the Mid-Century modern house in 2004. Although the one-story residence measures 1,600-square-feet, floor-to-ceiling windows and glass doors make it feel larger. So does the uninterrupted, 150-degree view of the sea.

Yet the property had been neglected and the Piersons wanted to enhance their enjoyment of the vast expanse of ocean and sky.

They commissioned Pamela to design a bold, contemporary garden with spaces for both solitary and social pursuits. “The design was inspired by the site, especially the horizon, and the light,” she says. “Frank and Helene live in a world of stories. Their minds are very flexible and they visualized this garden very clearly.”

I arrived at the Piersons’ home and garden on a late afternoon in November. With designer Pamela Palmer, we toured the exquisite property and noticed all the special details and materials of the renovation. Frank and Helene showed me some of their favorite places and plants. (Above, Pamela and Frank in conversation – at the gas fire bowl).

I was so impressed to meet them and enjoy a momentary glimpse into their magical environment. To share a glass of wine with Frank, a legendary American screenwriter, and ask him about his career was a real privilege. The garden is pretty killer, too!

Here are some of my photographs from my November tour of the garden. Thanks to the Piersons and to Pamela Palmer for the time they devoted to telling the story of this garden. (And thanks to Lisa Higgins at MetHome for the assignment!)

If you’re lucky enough to travel anywhere in the world, there’s no excuse not to try and visit the local botanical garden or arboretum. My family has become used to this mission of mine and they often accommodate me.

Last weekend, though, I was with my fellow hort geeks, and no one tried to stop me from a garden side trip! I traveled to Phoenix for the Garden Writers Association winter board meeting. After sitting indoors in a board room all day, we rewarded ourselves by racing over to the Desert Botanical Garden, a magnificent place in the heart of Phoenix.

I first visited DBG about five years ago while staying with my parents (they have spent their winters in Mesa, AZ, a suburb of Phoenix for the past five or six years). At the time, I was a Seattle gardener. I was not interested in cactuses or other thorny desert plants. But the visit changed my mindset. The garden dates back to the late 1930s and it is designed beautifully. Who knew then that I would eventually live in Southern California where all these alien plants thrive with little or no water, heat, sun and (practically) neglect!?

Here are a few shots I took on that first visit:

The January 31, 2009 visit had an agenda.

Number one: Tour “Chihuly: The Nature of Glass” show, the Seattle artist’s first installation entirely within a desert garden environment.  Number two: Meet Ken Schutz, the garden’s executive director, who led the GWA board on guided tour of the show (plus, he graciously joined us for dinner following our hour-long walk through the plants-and-glass extravaganza).

We gathered at the DBG entrance and were welcomed with a refreshing drink, straight from the desert: Prickly Pear Margaritas topped with a wedge of lime! You can purchase the Prickly Pear syrup in the garden’s wonderful gift shop.

 

Enjoy my narrated introduction, followed by my favorite images:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_F6-J8AOwo

A virtual tour of the gorgeous glass sculpture display:

“Sun,” the opening sculpture

Agaves in glass: the new entry piece

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A dining pavilion with presence – who wouldn’t want to eat here? Photo by William Wright

Several years ago, Bill Wright and I created an article for Seattle Homes & Lifestyles about dining pavilions. The story centered around one incredible structure, designed by Seattle architect Susan Miller for a client in her neighborhood. What we loved about the design, the materials, the placement and the pure heft of the finished pavilion was its intent. It was designed for a purpose, not just plunked down in the backyard as an afterthought.

The race is on to capture our unfulfilled outdoor spaces for a higher — and better purpose. It’s a crowded field of excellent and inspiring ideas. More than ever we want to define and thoughtfully use the land on which we live (large or small or in between). I note this, not just because I’m living in LA. This phenomenon is all over the west and everywhere summer occurs.

I’ve had the word “Pavilion” in my shed glossary for quite some time and somehow the link was broken. I finally dug into the problem and am reviving the page with new photography. Here is the Pavilion entry.

Here’s an excerpt from my story about dining pavilions, which appeared in May 2002, entitled:

Dining Out: There’s nothing like a backyard pavilion to enhance alfresco entertaining:

Green Lake resident Heidi Hackett wanted to bring her meals into the garden – with more than a picnic table and umbrella. “I wanted something that I could use outside for more days than I would use a deck,” she recalls.

Susan Miller and Amy Gorman of Gardentile Inc. met the challenge, designing Heidi’s garden and its central showpiece: a fanciful dining pavilion that’s a scaled-down version of Heidi’s 1908 farmhouse. The 11-foot-square structure incorporates elements borrowed from the home’s architecture: boxed columns, a shake roof, beveled trim and a cupola.

While she’s designed a fair number of open arbors, Miller says there is an advantage to a covered place in the yard. “This is a great way to extend how you use the garden,” she points out. “The structure is tied to the house, but it stands out in the garden.”

Thoughtful finishes make Heidi’s pavilion an unforgettable destination for entertaining. Dry-set Pennsylvania bluestone pavers cover the patio floor; the ceiling is lined in the same beadboard as the home’s wraparound porch. A copper cap completes the cupola roof.

Borrowing the pattern from the home’s leaded-glass windows, the designers added bands of decorative metalwork between the pavilion’s columns and repeated the detail in an adjacent fence.

As she walks through her kitchen’s French doors, Heidi pauses on the porch to enjoy the view of her charming pavilion. She loves stepping across the whimsical checkerboard pavers that lure her visitors out to the structure.

“I use it all year long,” she says. “I’ll even go out on a rainy afternoon. And last winter, I hung lights there so we could enjoy hot cocoa outside in the evenings.”

Literary agent Charlotte Gusay has a delicious secret. She recently shared it with me and gave me permission to write about it here.

Charlotte contacted me after reading about my shed expertise (also known as an “obsession”) in Dwell magazine:

“[I] saw the recent issue of Dwell (Feb. 09) with your article on ‘backyard’ sheds. So disappointed we did not find each other before this article and/or your book . . . .

“I have a swell little ‘postmodern shed’ that my husband Bobby Milder and I built about 5 years ago. . . .”

She sent along a few photographs to tempt me. What else would a nosy reporter such as me do next? I called Charlotte and invited myself over for a visit. Paula Panich, my writing mentor and friend, came along last week when we drove over to Charlotte’s after lunch.

Her house sits quietly on a tree-lined city street, just a block or so away from a major thoroughfare. It is nice to know these inviting residential pockets exist here in LA, right in the city. I love it!

This irresistible 10-by-14 foot haven is tucked comfortably into a far corner of Charlotte’s urban lot, hidden from everyone’s view but hers. Because of the way it has been sited, the shelter is first seen “in profile,” its longer side and angled shed roof-line emphasized. When glimpsed by newcomers (such as Paula and me) the shed reveals its see-through quality, thanks to a wraparound glass “corner” that connects two outer walls. The white-painted framework around the windows and door outlines and emphasizes vertical and horizontal lines of the design (almost Mondrianesque in its geometry).

I like how Charlotte described the shed to me in her first email note: “It floats elegantly in the backyard, just beyond our 1944 mid-century house in West Los Angeles.”

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Sparkling and serene, this is a tiny garden that oozes romance and mystique (design and photo, Laura Morton)

I believe that the paths we walk lead us to the people we need to know in our lives.

Case in point: A week or so after I insisted that my friend Shirley Bovshow, an LA garden media personality and talented designer, bunk with me for 2 nights at the Portland Garden Writers Association annual symposium, she invited me to join an Association of Professional Landscape Designers’ lunch meeting at her home in Woodland Hills. Since Shirley and I live relatively close to one another (by LA standards), I took her up on the invite. The other guests were fellow members with Shirley in APLD’s LA chapter. Plus, Shirley’s garden is a wonderland of plants and design ideas.

The Association of Professional Landscape Designers is an impressive organization. I have met, interviewed and written about APLD members (and their work) in many venues, including Seattle, Los Angeles and beyond.

The September gathering introduced me to several Southern California garden creators, including Shirley (Edenmaker), Jennifer Gilbert Asher of TerraSculpture (I’ve recently written about her work), and Laura Morton of Laura Morton Garden Design.

When Laura casually mentioned to me that one of her projects won the 2008 APLD “Gold Award” for residential landscape design, I went a little crazy. “Has it been published?” I quizzed her. “No,” she admitted.

No sooner than I heard this – and no sooner had Laura sent me several photographs and a little movie about her design for Mala Vasan’s Hollywood Hills backyard, than I was on the phone to LA Times HOME section editor Craig Nakano. As I suspected, he was very interested in seeing what Laura had to share.

Open air living: Designer Laura Morton changed a plain backyard at Mala Vasan’s home into an Indian-tinged outdoor living room with a reflecting pool, fire pit and garden (Laura Morton photograph)

The story about Mala’s garden, inspired by her own multicultural interests and designed by Laura Morton, appears in today’s LA Times Homes section. Here are the opening lines:

HER PASSAGE TO INDIA: A Hollywood Hills bungalow’s small backyard is transformed into an exotic, cozy retreat and social spot.

If you’re looking for a good excuse to invest in landscaping, Mala Vasan’s is hard to beat. She credits her dreamy mix of Indian and Moroccan inspiration for seducing her sweetheart.

“My garden brings out an inner magic,” says Vasan, a producer of TV commercials who was going out to eat with screenwriter Brian P. Regan when he saw the enchanting outdoor space and said, “Forget it. Let’s stay here and order Chinese food.”

With scented blossoms, dancing flames, the sound of spilling water and chaises large enough for two, the intimate setting is, indeed, full of romance. (“Our first dates were on those couches,” Vasan says.) The garden also is an artful antithesis of what it used to be: a driveway too small for a car and a 560-square-foot backyard dominated by a wobbly brick patio and views of a boxy air-conditioner hanging from the neighbor’s garage.

The transformation of this Hollywood Hills property earned its creator, Laura Morton of Laura Morton Design in West Hollywood, a gold medal last year from the Assn. of Professional Landscape Designers. For Vasan, the thoughtful design was proof that tiny details and a vivid imagination could turn a prosaic space into a pretty and practical retreat.

The Times’ online photo gallery features several before-and-after shots, including a darling photo of designer Laura Morton and client Mala Vasan, seated in the garden. You can see the gallery here.

Here are a few more photographs, courtesy of Laura Morton. Visit her web site to see many more of her projects – inspiring and alluring spaces that will get you thinking about turning your own backyard into an exotic oasis with plants, cushy textiles, the presence of water, candles to illuminate and other sensory pleasures.

A curtain of water spills over the reflecting pool’s tiled edge into a hidden channel behind the fire pit (Laura Morton photograph)

Romantic chaises, piled with textiles and cushions, create a luxurious outdoor living room (Laura Morton photograph)

In my interview with Laura, she described how a feeling of intimacy can be created in a garden:

“Enclosed spaces instill a sense of intimacy, and within that, your own sense of paradise is possible.”

This post aspires to nothing more than sharing with you my garden-gal outing two days ago to the Getty Center in LA. I had a lovely “New Year’s” lunch with garden designers Linda McKendry (of Linda McKendry Design) and Laura Morton (of Laura Morton Garden Design).

We toasted the New Year and talked about our goals, our wishes, our dreams, our *resolutions* and a bit of reality. After lunch, the three of us took an afternoon stroll through the Getty’s Robert Irwin-designed garden.

The light was beautiful. The plantings were surreal. Enjoy!