West Lake Residence Skaneateles, NY
Site size: Program: Services: Completion date: Client:
2 acres Residential landscaping Site planning, landscape design 2012 Meyer and Meyer Architects
Working with Meyer and Meyer Architects’ redesign and expansion of a late 19th-century lakeside house, Pressley Associates helped the homeowners achieve a waterfront home with the domestic grandeur and the estate expanse of a Newport mansion.
The property slopes down toward the lake at an average 14% grade. Terraces and walls create and differentiate usable, level areas, each with its own theme and purpose. These landscape spaces are divided into garden “rooms” with distinctive characteristics and aesthetic elements.
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
1035 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02141
t 617-491-5300
f 617 491 7502
www.pressleyinc.com
West Lake Residence
page 2
Water Garden and Lawn Terrace: Before and After
An underutilized, undergrown back yard fronted by an undistinguished ranch dwelling received the magic touches of a raised limestone balustrade, a tall evergreen hedge, a massive limestone/wood pergola, and a koi pond fountain court to be reframed and rejuvenated as... ...the Water Garden, an ornamental pleasure ground with the style, grace and haute couture of a French country manor landscape. The fountain pond is home to water lilies and lotuses.
Overlooking the Water Garden and West Lake is the Lawn Terrace, a green patio located directly off the house’s ground floor, enabling the owners to step out and enjoy their garden of delights.
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
1035 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02141
t 617-491-5300
f 617 491 7502
www.pressleyinc.com
page 3
West Lake Residence
Ellipse Garden
Accessible by an arbor passage through the Water Garden’s tall evergreen hedge is...
...the Ellipse Garden, designed for the owners’ everyday use, and for special events. A gently bowing fieldstone grotto, topped by a limestone balustrade and flanked by stairs, adds picturesque pomp.
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
1035 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02141
t 617-491-5300
f 617 491 7502
www.pressleyinc.com
page 4
West Lake Residence
Driveway
The driveway follows a route that reveals a sequence of views of the new landscape, a row of hornbeam trees bordering the lake, a privet hedge... ...and the extraordinary house. Magnolia trees grace the end of the driveway, complementing the nature inspiration of the Arts and Crafts styled porte-cochère.
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
1035 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02141
t 617-491-5300
f 617 491 7502
www.pressleyinc.com
West Lake Residence
page 5
Flower gardens
Along the southern edge of the lawn is a meandering path through a lovely natural area leading to the water’s edge, profusely planted with peonies and other perennials for a wildflower effect.
Bulbs fill the perennial beds in the spring and blossom into hydrangeas, peonies, black-eyed Susans, ornamental grasses and other plants in the summer.
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
1035 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02141
t 617-491-5300
f 617 491 7502
www.pressleyinc.com
page 6
West Lake Residence
Masonry and meadow Beautiful annuals enrich a limestone fire pit. A rest on its bench offers a breathtaking view of West Lake.
Perennials splash the slopes of the grotto staircases with cliffs of color.
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
1035 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02141
t 617-491-5300
f 617 491 7502
www.pressleyinc.com
West Lake Residence
page 7
Night and day
Accent lighting highlights the architectural and natural elements of the Water Garden and its trellis, unifying the organic and the geometric, the natural and the manmade, as a totality.
Sunlight shadows the walkway with the crisscross pattern of the trellis, giving the promenade a sense of shelter and order as a contrast to nature’s open ramble.
The porte-cochere takes in the panorama of the driveway landscape, unifying the structure’s natural attributes — ashlar fieldstone, curving wood — with the nature that unfolds before it.
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
1035 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02141
t 617-491-5300
f 617 491 7502
www.pressleyinc.com