The town of Telluride is known for its glorious mining years of the late 19th century and glimpses of this era can be seen throughout its historic neighborhoods. This L-type house with its street-facing covered porch and steps had suffered long enough without a high value landscape to match the home. Along with other much needed architectural changes, we co-conspired with master architect, Eric Cummings, to create a beautiful home and garden.
The once sloping garden beds that would not hold water and messily intersected into the lawn were transformed into raised beds made from thick steel, providing level areas we filled with soil amended with reliably sourced compost. The decades old lilac tree on the east side of the property, once standing alone now has native Jacob’s ladder at its feet, and adjacent, flowering hydrangeas that obligingly take over the show with their late summer blooms. Native dogwoods also partake in this lovely shrub display.
Even in a suburban formal garden, connecting people to their landscape can be achieved. Ash-leaf spirea and native Monkshood flank the porch steps, along with Peonies and Columbine. Along the fence line and welcoming passers-by are tall Delphinium, Lavender, more Columbine of various colors, and ornamental grasses. In late summer, the False sunflowers and Echinacea take over the show to complete the season long color display.
The more private back yard area, once home to an uninviting deteriorating and heaving flagstone patio, now provides an upper wooden deck for dining and a lower granite paver patio with a natural gas fire pit. The large granite pavers repeat as one approaches the front door and here, in the back yard, lead one from the fire pit to the detached garage.
An outdated egress/window well needed to be made into a useful space while still meeting the requirements of the building code. Skillfully designed terraces with an adjacent steel stairway provides the required egress along with planted beds that are the main visual from the basement level. The terraces match all of the raised planters throughout the landscape.
This property, now complete, offers the homeowners and their guests a gorgeous highly functional home and landscape right in the center of the Town’s historic residential district.
