CONTRIBUTOR | LUXURY OUTDOOR LIVING
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MOUNTAIN MAGIC BY WILL STROPE
AN UPSCALE RUSTIC RETREAT COMBINES BACKYARD FUN WITH NATURAL WOODED SURROUNDINGS.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHAD GUNTON.
This mountain lodge–style home needed a matching landscape that highlighted its beautiful architectural features. The homeowners tasked us with creating a natural-looking alpine escape that extended fluidly into its North Carolina wooded setting. To accomplish this goal, we relied on hardscaping, boulders, regional softscaping, and the addition of a lakeside-lodge cabana to play the stars of the show. The Old North State design team began by designing a natural-looking hillside at the far end of the seventy-foot beach-entry pool. They nestled in a grotto built of large
natural stones and stacked boulders to resemble a lake setting. Rough-cut stone slabs serve as steps on the grotto hill, surrounded by boulders and stones that help integrate the Dolphin Waterslide into the rocky setting. Weeping bald cypress, Japanese maples, and other native plantings help pull the entire look together. More than seven-hundred shrubs, including itea, loropetalum, viburnum, witch hazel, hydrangeas, camellias, and azaleas surround each walkway and patio, while flowering perennials such as hellebores, black-eyed Susan, coreopsis, echinacea, phlox, and peonies add a dose of color. Sweeping curved patios and walkways made of Lincoln Creek flagstone, ivory travertine, and cappadocia travertine connect the house, grotto, pool, and newly built cabana, ensuring they harmoniously coexist. Our design team
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