This newly-built family garden is designed for year-round entertaining.
Landscape of the Year Awards Entrant VIC
A knockdown-rebuild is a shrewd way to get the house you want in your dream suburb — or stay in the location you love but with a bespoke new home. And as you’ll be literally starting from the ground up, it’s also an opportunity to create outdoor living spaces that will give you the lifestyle you deserve.
This was the scenario presented to Andrew Whyte, director of Whyte Gardens, by the owners of this prized block in Glen Iris, one of Melbourne’s most coveted suburbs.
“They wanted me to design and build a brand-new garden for their knockdown-rebuild project,” says Andrew. “They wanted it be an entertainer’s delight where the whole family could spend time together outdoors.
“They envisioned a contemporary garden combining the simplicity of clean lines with curved areas and forms for contrast. And it was important to them that the garden be lush and inviting but easy to maintain.
“A swimming pool was at the top of the family’s must-include list. It needed to cater to every family member’s lifestyle needs, exude luxury, and work around one of the only elements retained from the original landscape — a mature jacaranda tree that fills the garden with masses of pretty purple blooms every summer.”
The refined pool, with its modern feel and formal lines, is the height of luxury, from the beautifully tiled interior to the generous built-in spa and spacious underwater bench. The surrounds are of sophisticated limestone paving with limestone batten tiles used to clad the pool’s exterior walls.
A cantilevered umbrella was installed in the pool surrounds behind the underwater bench, making it the coolest place to hang out in summer. And we can’t forget the long, timber poolside bench which hugs the house and sits under the home’s overhang, providing another shady space to relax.
At one end of the pool, an ironbark deck covered by a pergola with a louvered roof wraps around the house, easing the indoor-outdoor transition. The louvres can be opened, closed or angled according to the weather, and lighting was installed, adding versatility to what is the family’s main outdoor dining space.
“The plants are a contemporary selection of exotics and natives chosen for shape and tone rather than flowers. This creates a feeling of lushness that is warm and welcoming year-round,” says Andrew.
“This is a high-end project that involved a lot of engineering and planning to work through the challenges, such as the slope of the block, which required the building of substantial retaining walls.”
By implementing a carefully zoned, multi-level layout in which transitions are thoughtfully managed and there is cohesion in the use of materials, from the limestone paving and stepper pathways to the dry stone granite feature walling on the house, Andrew has created a seamlessly unified, lifestyle-enhancing landscape that is a dream come true for the family.
For more information
WHYTE GARDENS
Mobile 0407 338 788
Email andrew@whytegardens.com.au