Upon arrival at her clients’ 100-year-old federal-style home in Highland Park, landscape architect Melissa Gerstle knew she could make what was old new again, without losing a hint of original charm. The clients, avid art collectors in the process of relocating to Dallas from New York City, were renovating the home and grounds; they had spotted Gerstle’s work at a Kips Bay Show House and reached out to her for help. “We thought that the property, like the house itself, had good bones and a lot of potential, but it was tired, a bit neglected and needed freshening,” shares the client, whose home sits alongside Exall Lake, formed by the damming of Turtle Creek in the late 19th century.
Faced with hardly any salvageable plants and a backyard lawn strewn with plywood, dirt and mud — due to that all-too-familiar combination of construction and unpredictable North Texas weather — Gerstle and her team got to work.
“Our goal was really to just make this garden feel like it fit with the house and with the property. Everything was in response to this beautiful, older, architecturally significant home,” she says. “We wanted to highlight all the fabulous features on the lot and in the architecture and bring them to life.”
Towering live oaks, lakefront views, existing hardscapes and a pool provided an exceptional starting point for integrating new features, fresh plantings and internationally sourced outdoor furnishings. “We kept the bones of the garden and the things that were working,” Gerstle shares. “We wanted to feel the age of the garden, but we wanted things to blend with it so it would feel like everything sort of evolved with the garden over time.”
The grounds as they stand today are the result of a yearslong process, with updates made even in recent weeks. “When you have a client who wants to keep working with you, who understands that a garden evolves, then you can really just continue to learn from what you’ve done but also just keep making it better and better,” Gerstle says.
The entrance to the property features a parterre garden, striking with its decorative arrangement of beds and pathways. Perfectly manicured hedges surround one of British artist Gary Hume’s “Back of a Snowman” sculptures, elevated on a plinth.
To help guests continue to navigate their way to the home’s entrance from the parterre garden, Gerstle introduced a visual cue. Two rare, vintage Willy Guhl planters flank the walkway and add to the feeling that the outdoor space naturally evolved over time. Large agaves sit inside those containers, also elevated on pedestals.
Along the path of stepping stones, guests pass a highly curated plant palette Gerstle designed from nothing more than dirt. A woodland garden of ferns, soft carress mahonia and carex sit against a backdrop of eleagnus. “We did this really soft planting of textures and a lot of evergreen plants that show green on green and a play on different textures and forms,” she says.
Just opposite, a more relaxed space features lantern-like globe pendants that sparkle under a majestic live oak. “They look like they’re suspended in midair because at night you can’t see the cords,” the homeowner says. Gerstle collaborated with Dallas-based E2 Illumination Designs to get the placement just right, drawing a map of where to place each piece, then meeting the consultant on-site for tweaks.
She added a limestone wood-burning firepit, with chiseled-edge coping and surrounding Adirondack chairs. The whole scene rests on a geometric surface designed to match the existing backyard hardscapes. “We wanted it to blend in, so it kind of dissolves into the lawn. The pieces sort of break away from the main seating area,” Gerstle says of the tiles. Just beyond a few azaleas sits the lake. “It’s really magical in the evening,” she adds.
As you approach the front door, a basket-bottomed Dedon tree swing sways in the breeze as though that’s its rightful place in the world. Actually, it’s a solution Gerstle dreamed up to make use of what was originally empty hardscape, which she believes must have originally been designed to mirror the arches of the home’s landing. “Especially with renovations, we run into these odd things, and we have to make it work. It has to look like there was a reason for it, and we have to make it make sense,” she says, explaining that such an approach is often a client’s preference, as opposed to pulling out the home’s historical features and starting over.
In the backyard, a preexisting rounded terrace soon became a modern-day entertainment area, remodeled to complement the existing architecture and features. Gerstle removed a huge pergola and pruned the mature trees to open up the space. “Then we added a planting all along the back wall of giant ligularia mixed with Japanese aurelia, then underplanted with mondo grass,” she says.
While that back brick wall looks as if it has history baked into its colors and softened edges, the pool had a somewhat modern bent that felt jarring, with circa-1980s mint green tilework. Gerstle’s team quickly replaced it with with blue horizontal waterline tiles and French gray plaster. The spa addition utilizes the same tile surrounding the pool and in time will age to match, complementing the garden wall and suiting the classic architectural features. New plantings add foliage and texture to the space; holly ferns top the pool wall, with seasonal color in front and aurelia along the back wall.
With a small and narrow pool deck, Gerstle created an additional seating area nearby with a daybed from Janus et Cie. “This space could be solitary, if you wanted to just read a book or unwind, or you could nest with someone else in there,” she says, noting the lounger rotates 360 degrees to face any direction and has a canopy that pulls down. “There’s this theory called ‘prospect refuge,’ which is about human nature, how we want to feel safe, but we want to have a perch or place where we can look out from. I feel this this really embodies that kind of space.”
It’s all exactly what the clients wanted, and they find themselves enjoying their yard practically year-round, a treat after a lifetime of Northeastern winters. “It’s nice to be able to sit outside on a nice evening,” the homeowner shares, “and light the fire pit or dine outside with friends.”
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