This two-acre pond-front property had everything going for it — a large, beautifully crafted shingle-style home, a pool, mature trees, and a nature preserve along its back edge — but the landscape wasn't keeping pace. Turf grass dominated, the planting palette was tired, and the property wasn't making anything of its setting. The clients wanted a landscape that matched the ambition of their home: classic in character, but more alive.

The guiding idea was that native plants don't have to look naturalistic. Eighty-five percent of the plants on this site are native species — but you wouldn't know it from the arrival sequence, where the design is as composed and intentional as anything in a traditional garden. The driveway is edged in granite cobble and lined with a layered composition of native grasses, tightly clipped boxwood spheres, and allium — structured enough to feel deliberate, loose enough to feel alive. The full facade of the house is visible the moment you turn in, and the planting frames it with an almost installation-like precision.

In the backyard, a third of the lawn was replaced with a native meadow — the one area of the property where the planting is allowed to read as wild. It was a deliberate choice: the property borders a nature preserve, and the meadow draws that edge inward, reducing maintenance while giving the landscape an ecological grounding that the rest of the site carries more quietly. The pool surround was reimagined with bluestone pavers set into the lawn, expanding the seating area, and naturalistic planting softens the pool's dated shape. A steep hillside beside the deck was made accessible with new bluestone steps and stabilized with deep-rooted ornamental grasses.

A leveled side yard became an outdoor sports area — bocce court and volleyball net — tucked in with enough care to feel considered rather than appended.

Three years on, the clients are expanding the project, replacing the lawn in an additional side yard this fall. The landscape has grown into itself, and they want more of it.

Refined Native

Bridgehampton, New York

A gravel driveway bordered by a stone edge, with lush green shrubs and plants along the side. The background shows a shingled house with a front door and a window, and some decorative potted plants near the entrance.
A garden with mature trees, green grass, and plants in nursery pots laid out for installation.
A set of outdoor bluestone stairs leading up to a house with a shingled exterior, surrounded by lawn and tall ornamental grasses, under a partly cloudy sky.
A hillside planted with native grasses, surrounded by greenery and a large tree in the foreground, with a large shingled home in the background.
A garden scene with various green plants and fallen autumn leaves along a pathway, a large tree trunk, and people in the background installing supplemental plantings.
A gravel bocce court with wood edging and a bench, surrounded by grass and trees with green leaves, in a large residential backyard.