In this our 4th design collaboration with Bryan Pulte Interiors, we were asked to make use of leftover outdoor pockets in a tight, urban Denver lot. The initial design on Forest Street Parkway in the Parkhill neighborhood, created two outdoor living spaces, each cozy in their own right. The upper [...]]]>

Firepit Seating Area

In this our 4th design collaboration with Bryan Pulte Interiors, we were asked to make use of leftover outdoor pockets in a tight, urban Denver lot. The initial design on Forest Street Parkway in the Parkhill neighborhood, created two outdoor living spaces, each cozy in their own right. The upper patio was re-configured to allow a more flowing, graceful access down into the garden while also hosting a large outdoor dining area, a wall fountain framed by multistem, flowering trees and vines, and a BBQ grill. The two courtyards where brought together by a meandering sandstone pathway which transitions through evergreen foundation shrubs, flowering, low-water perennials and groundcovers, and moss rock boulders of the same neutral color scheme.

The lower patio was created more as a destination area with a firepit as the focal point, and a sitting wall enclosing the space. The lower patio was built with recycled old sandstone pavers from the site and integrated with precast concrete pavers used in bands.  The final step was to ensure the landscape spaces created echoed such a large house. This was accomplished by matching fabrics and colors used of the awnings and window treatments located on the house to the outdoor furnishings used in the landscape.

This is Bryan Pulte’s personal residence on Polo Field Lane in Cherry Creek. Bryan is a renowned Denver interior designer, and I feel honored to have been chosen to design the landscape for his own home.

All of the usable surfaces for people in this garden are decks. It’s a series of cascading [...]]]>

A Denver garden design.

This is Bryan Pulte’s personal residence on Polo Field Lane in Cherry Creek. Bryan is a renowned Denver interior designer, and I feel honored to have been chosen to design the landscape for his own home.

All of the usable surfaces for people in this garden are decks. It’s a series of cascading decks with wide double-tread steps. In this case we’re using a combination of a Trex synthetic wood surface and red flagstone, both with a reddish hue. It is a hexagonal pattern, with a hexagonal piece of red sandstone in the middle of the hexagonal deck section and then the border is also in sandstone, as shown below.

Hexagonal deck of Polo Field Lane landscape in Denver, Colorado

It’s a very small, intensely urban, very private garden, designed around and through preexisting large trees. We planted an incredible number of trees to make a veritable forest of river birch in this tiny garden, creating a glen. We also used a small, spring-like water feature with an unusual grey water-shaped moss rock. By cantilevering the paving out over the water, we’ve created sitting places right by the water. It forms a good size pool of water, where you can sit right by it.

This shows the water feature with cantilevered paving

We used ornamentally sculptural furniture, with some big pots both on the paving and in planting beds. We incorporated several kinds of Japanese Maples, including the fine cut-leaf Japanese Maple, and another type of larger growing Japanese maple which is also red-leafed. The picture above shows the triangulation of three different plants that have a reddish hue: one that is grass-like, the larger growing Japanese maple, and the cut-leaf Japanese maple, contrasted with blue spruce.

Since I have such respect for Bryan’s artistic sense and design expertise, it is especially gratifying that he has complimented my work with this quote:

Tom is a true master in his field;  he is an inspired artist.  There are many people who paint, but there are very few Rembrandts. Tom is one of them.  He and Paul (owner/contractor of Changing Landscapes) have created three extraordinary gardens for me.