HOME IMPROVEMENTS
Luxe
Landscaping
W
BEFORE
hen Karen and Richard McNeer relocated east of
Pittsburgh from Boston, where they lived for 30 years, they
wanted to find something similar to the very modern loft
they owned there. Eventually, Karen and Richard settled on a newly
renovated, open-plan house with a vacant lot running alongside of it.
“The owner of that empty lot was interested in putting in condos, so
we bought it from him to preserve the green space,” Karen shares. “I’m
an avid gardener. I spent a good deal of my childhood in nurseries. My
father hybridized orchids and my mother was a wildflower expert.”
While the home already had a well-designed deck and patio complete
with a fireplace feature, Karen had a higher vision for that lot space.
“I wanted very modern, clean lines, not a traditional English cottage
garden. I was going for a Zen feel but we couldn’t pretend that it was
going to be a mountain terrain or a winding pathway.”
The McNeers brought in a licensed landscape architect. The lot
had been used for parking and was a hideous sea of gravel—almost
impenetrable, like concrete. But any space can be turned into a good
space. The challenge was to create something that could serve as an
art piece viewable from the many windows above, but could be a
quiet retreat, as well. The couple also wanted to enclose the yard, as
pedestrians tended to use the space as a shortcut between roads.
The project’s biggest design challenge was organizing the narrow
125-feet-long by 24-feet-wide area without it becoming too busy
or feeling boxed in. Furthermore, some room had to be left for the
neighbor to maintain the exterior wall of his house.
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