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When Jordan Kaplan posture down for his first meeting with Grant Kirkpatrick and Damon Hein of the computer architecture and landscape painting design firmKAA Design , he gave them one mandate for the gardens he wanted to build around his Modern home in Los Angeles ’ Pacific Palisades . “ To give you an idea where my focus is , ” he said , “ I need the landscape to have as much importance and value as the house . ”
A street opinion of the household , where a sea ofTulbaghia violaceaawaits visitor . Bluestone retain wall planter hold improbable , wispyGrevillea‘Long John , ’ at right , and on the opposite side of the limestone steps are phormium and blooming Brazilian rosewood . Photo by : Tim Street - Porter . SEE MORE exposure OF THIS GARDEN
It was an unusual argument in this age of house - centric design , especially come from a homeowner who work in material estate . For Kaplan , who specializes in commercial and multifamily property , familiarity with the market is on the button what made him want to concentre on landscape . “ I did n’t want one of those properties where the house is elephantine and the yard is little , ” he enjoin . “ I desire them to be in proportion to each other . ”
When he bought the parcel in the Benny Hill above Sunset Boulevard a X ago , a curving driveway cut through a lawn to reach a California spread house set into the rear of the property . Kaplan decide to take up from scratch by tear down the ranch . The new house , a two - story modernist structure , sits close to the street and has line that draw the oculus to a central atrium and then out to a series of discrete outdoor spaces beyond . The building itself is full of familiar California touches : nappy lines , walnut trading floor , and mahogany tree trim , but any sense of the expected disappears at the garden .
The surprises begin outside the entryway , framed inbambooand ficus , where a bridge cross a rock garden comprised of pebbles and five granite boulders , imply to arouse the five Confucian virtues . To the eastward , the genus Ficus go forward around the margin of the curved yard , hiding the street beyond . Layers of big - leaf tropic plants and gingerroot blear this living boundary contrast .
A tall cluster of tufted papyrus adds drama to the koi pool , which runs parallel to the ipe pool deck . On the far side of the consortium , two Sutherland shay are pass over in Perennials outside framework and place against a backdrop of giant bird of paradise , tibouchina , and several types of palm . picture by : Tim Street - Porter . SEE MORE photograph OF THIS GARDEN
A lawn wrap around one side of the house , dotted with paradise palms and bluestone bench , and is almost parklike in feel . It ’s intended for overweight usance — there ’s a trampoline for Kaplan ’s and his wife ’s three children , and a irregular floor is often laid over the grass for parties .
Beyond the lawn , on a direct contrast from the front entry , the pie-eyed garden lead off : a syndicate , waterfall , and koi pond are bookended by matching standstill of papyrus . A Southeast Asiatic lanai stands adjacent to the pool , creating a unseamed modulation from outdoor to indoor spaces . At one end of the lanai , a jumbo Burmese honeysuckle vine climbs into the eaves with abandon .
The burble of the koi pool waterfall is a austere direct contrast to the Ryoan - ji - mode Zen rock garden at the entry that has a symbolic seascape trace in gravel . But for Hein , there is a clear-cut connexion between the two landscape . “ There is an axis vertebra proceed through the front door and the garden out back that ties it together , ” he says . “ element repeat at either remnant of the axis . [ At the pool ] there is existent water as opposed to the idea of water constitute in front of the house . ”
A second axis crosses in the business firm from the east side lawn to a semi - confine jewel box garden to the western United States of the formal dining surface area . Where the lawn is both heroic and wild , hinting at hobo camp , this modest treasure is a study in spare composition . Against one wall it has a soft waterfall , against another , a Japanese maple . Below the tree diagram lies a three - ton piece of volcanic schist , break up in half to discover a vena of chickenhearted - livid quartz .
The sign was designed with a gumption of stream , say Hein , KAA ’s former landscape painting director who now runs his own firm . “ It ’s not a construction and a garden , ” he sound out . “ We downplay any note between the two . ”
Kaplan ’s warmheartedness for tropical environments and Asian design stems from visits to the Far East when he was a graduate student and in years since when he shuttled between Los Angeles and Asia for stage business . He often combined work slip with family vacations in Hawaii , ofttimes at the Four Seasons Hualalai holiday resort on the Big Island ’s North Kona coast .
KAA paid court to those sensibilities by bringing inPlumeria‘Candy Stripe , ’ telluric orchid , palms , giant birds of paradise , jasmine , and philodendron , among others . The evergreen plant wall around the lawn is dotted throughout the twelvemonth with semblance when the gingers flower — the heady perfume of kahili gingerroot ( Hedychium gardnerianum ) , delicate pink buds of scale pep ( Alpinia zerumbet ) , along with the meaty , multicolor lobster claw ( Heliconia schiedeana ) . In tardy spring , the jacaranda ( mimosifolia ) explodes in lavender , while even late in August the pinkish trumpet tree ( Tabebuia impetiginosa ) check onto its flowers . At the easterly box of the lot , the gnarly trunk of a matured peppermint gum tree ( Agonis flexuosa ) offers a kid - favorable climbing rod .
Pennsylvania bluestone bulwark edge the seat clump adjacent to the dining field . Plantings of grandiloquent Egyptian paper rush and clunk mondo grass relent the preciseness of the hardscaping ’s geometric strain and vertical slant . Photo by : Tim Street - Porter . SEE MORE photograph OF THIS GARDEN
The garden ’s most typical theme is the use of rock — sometimes as an art piece , as in the jewel box garden , and sometimes as a child ’s child’s play orbit , the perfect topography for Tonka toys . An appreciation for the mineral world is a passion Kaplan developed as a nestling develop up in nicely landscape tract trapping in the San Fernando Valley . His father , UCLA philosophy professor David Kaplan , take in him out to the Big Tujunga Wash in the foothill of the Valley . Using crowbar bars made of scavenged truck axles , they shift huge stones to contribute home to the syndicate garden .
For this landscape , Kaplan and member of the excogitation team made several trips to the Mojave Desert , roaming outback quarries off Highway 395 , look for just the right rock ‘n’ roll to truck in . “ The Pacific island theme was supposed to apply to the garden , ” says Kaplan . “ But we are in California , and I liked the boulders . ” The selections were pulled out , tagged , cleaned up , sometimes polish slightly , and stretch out in to carefully selected spots .
Kirkpatrick , a principal and founder at KAA , went along on one of the cockcrow patrol tripper to the desert . “ take the rocks was as of import as choosing the plants , ” he recalls , “ peradventure more . ”
Mineral materials show up throughout the garden and the house as limestone in patios and step and Pennsylvania bluestone almost everywhere else — in curving benches , upcountry and exterior wall , and fireplace .
keep up a tropical garden in Los Angeles can be tricky , especially airless to such a turgid lawn . Some of the tropicals are understory material , doing well in the shade but the body of water has to be carefully supervise . Out front the bamboo has grown almost into a live genkan , a green entrance , yet in the procedure has manage to break loose its cementum enclosures .
Even with care challenge , Kaplan says he ’s enthralled . For KAA , Kaplan was one of those rare guest whose priorities were outside in . “ So often the landscape painting is go forth until subsequently , and then the homeowner want to run to Home Depot for plant , ” say Kirkpatrick . “ Jordan buzz off landscape computer architecture . ”
Jeff Spurrier wrote“From the Roots”for Garden Design ’s Jan./Feb . 2012 issue .
This article originally appeared as " check the Rules " in GARDEN DESIGN ’s April 2012 upshot .
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