WILD AT HOME

A HOMEOWNER'S CHILDHOOD MEMORIES OF ROAMING THE FOREST, AND NATURE ITSELF, INSPIRED THIS GARDEN LAYERED IN DISCOVERY

- DARRA BAKER

Vera was really enamored with the idea of re-creating the natural landscape of her youth in Upstate New York, swimming in ponds, running barefoot through wildflower meadows with mud squeezing through her toes," says landscape architect Michael McGowan. With principal architect Erik Evens, he reinvented this bucolic setting, complete with a natural pond integrated into a swimming pool, for clients Vera and Gary Sutter to enjoy with their children and grandchildren in Montecito, California.

Thankfully, about 40 existing 80-year-old coast live oaks provided natural clearings on the property to animate the lifestyle the couple imagined. “Wherever there was a natural clearing under a tree, we used the space,” McGowan says.