Stone Masonry: perfect fit!

Yes folks, yet another reoccurring theme in my blog posts; excellent stone masonry work! When a true craftsman puts his hands to a stone wall, I cannot help but stare and admire it.

This past summer I was working on a landscape design for a custom home project built by a friend of mine, John Sever of Sever Homes, Custom Design and Build . The interesting thing for me was that I had ventured onto the job site to take pictures of the surrounding property so I could begin my design concept for the landscape plan...

Instead of focusing on the task at hand, my eyes were drawn to the stonework that was happening around the home itself. I snapped these pictures in admiration and decided to post them today to share with you... Once in a while you will see stone masonry projects where your eyes go immediately to mistakes in the stone layout, or forgotten corners of stone pieces that should have been chiseled smooth instead of left razor sharp. I've even seen cases where mortar is falling out of joints on a 2 year old house that is valued at about 1.5 million!...that to me would be like buying a Ferrari and having the wheel bolts shear off the first time you drive it....

Well, none of that scariness was evident on this project!... The masons took their time and poured their hearts into their craft as they put this exterior together. It was a pleasure to watch them work and always a pleasure to see what details John creates in his new home projects.... John will always demand good quality work from his trades when building a home... I do the same in my landscapes and that is why I like working with him, makes for a perfect fit.

The stone used here is a mixture of Dani stone mixed with Ebel stone... The Mason's technique is to mimic the style of stonework you would see on structures in the old parts of Downtown Toronto and in other various parts of Ontario where Credit Valley stone was used about 100 years ago.

The home is near complete and the landscape will be finished this spring... I will be sure to visit once everything is done and photograph it all for a future post update...

Sense of Place...

The front entrance is what can make or break a landscape... this is a re-occurring theme in my blog posts because I think it is one of the most important aspects of the landscape.


One of the important things we were taught in my years studying Landscape Architecture was that we were to give the visitor of a landscape the idea of a sense of arrival... or give the visitor a sense of place!

Being a young first year University student back then...you just blindly wrote down words uttered by your prof in hopes that one day you'd understand what they were talking about... of course, in my mind, the term needed further study which paved the way to an understanding that creating a landscape with a sense of place, would take a few years of practice to master the idea....


Wikipedia defines the term in a round about way as a place that has a special relationship to both the area and context it is located in as well as a special, unique or authentic feel to the person visiting the space.

Have I mastered this unique experience in my designs? Many clients have told me they love the landscapes I created for them... Each one unique to the home and to the user of the space... each place has it's own feel and energy to it and provides hours of enjoyment while a person uses the space. I guess by that definition and their comments, I have discovered how to put a "Sense of place" into the landscape...

But by my own definition, I am constantly learning and improving with the next design...striving to bring a unique flavour that is unmatched by my older work... so to say I have mastered it... I think the day I decide to retire from my work would be the day I consider that idea...

Coming soon...

Sorry folks, I have been away from my posts as of late...it has been a very very busy season for me and in the meantime I have been doing my own backyard landscape project.... it is still in progress but here is a slight taste of it...when I am complete with my fence, I will update for this post....