Outside Possibilities: ASLA Award-Winning Landscapes Showcase Creativity and Conservation
BY NORA BURBA TRULSSON
Quartz Mountain Residence, Paradise Valley, Arizona
Steve Martino, FASLA, Steve Matino & Associates, Phoenix, Arizona
PHOTOGRAPHY BY NICOLA BROWN AND STEVE MARTINO
It was the classic homeowner remodeling dilemma: Partway through a demolition and redesign spearheaded by a design/build contractor, the owners of an older Paradise Valley, Arizona house got stuck, creatively. They called in landscape architect Steve Martino, ostensibly for help with the garden.
"When I got there, I looked at the plans and told them they were going to make a big mistake," says Martino. "They were going to ruin the lines of the 1960s house." Additionally, he discovered, the new design/build plans lacked a connection with outdoor spaces and called for large window walls facing due west.
Steve Martino replaced a carport and an asphalt-paved parking area with a family room that opens up to two patios, including this sitting area shaded by palo verde trees.
The house, Martino learned, was designed in 1964 by the late Phoenix architect Blaine Drake, who was one of Frank Lloyd Wright's apprentices during the 1930s before launching his own successful residential practice in 1945. Despite some bad additions, this particular house was still basically intact.
However, the landscape left much to be desired. Ficus, oleander and palms blocked views of nearby Camelback Mountain and were at odds with the community's desert setting. A long asphalt driveway led through a carport and to a large cul-de-sac parking area at the front door, also paved in asphalt. There really were no shaded outdoor areas for dining or enjoying the pool. Additionally, there was the issue of noise from an adjacent busy roadway.
 A colorful wall hides a new parking area from the adjacent patio.
The homeowners, a couple with two young children, wished to expand the home and create outdoor living spaces for family and entertaining. Martino helped them rework their remodeling plans to make both the house and the garden work for their lifestyle.
A major change occurred in the driveway, carport and parking area. Martino suggested enclosing the carport with glass pocket doors to create a family room that could open to the outdoors at either end. He realigned the driveway to angle away from the house, and created a covered dining terrace at one end of the new family room and an entry courtyard at the opposite end, where a low wall hides the relocated parking area. A fountain on the dining terrace helps the homeowners tune out the roadway sounds. The new driveway was redone with decomposed granite, a water-permeable material that holds a lot less heat than the old asphalt.
 A fountain on the dining patio, just off the new family room, helps mask the sound of traffic from a nearby street.
Working with the existing pool, Martino widened the deck and created a new pool cabana and covered terrace to connect the back of the house to the pool area. A wall and a fountain by the pool provide not only a pleasant visual and sound, but also block views of the neighbor's blindingly white roof.
Martino used additional garden walls—many plastered in intense colors—to define the outdoor areas. Overhangs and ceiling fans provide shade and breezes; the landscape architect also designed a perforated aluminum sunscreen to shade east-facing glass doors near the pool cabana.
 A new pool cabana overlooks a small lawn. Perforated metal sunscreens shade the windows.
View-obstructing non-native plants were removed, but Martino was careful to preserve the original cactus and other natives. The landscape was replanted with palo verde trees, agaves and arid-region shrubs and flowers. A small square of grass between the pool and dining terrace is just large enough to accommodate kids and pets.
With the addition of contemporary outdoor furniture and accessories, the garden and new family room have expanded the home's living space.
 Golden barrel cactus and paving squares add geometry to one corner of the garden.
The project also expanded Martino's design-award count. The home won the 2006 Residential Design Award of Excellence in the ASLA national design competition.
Landscape architecture: Steve Martino & Associates, Phoenix, AZ; (602) 957-6150 or www.stevemartino.net.
3 Creek Ranch, Jackson, Wyoming
Jim Verdone, ASLA, Verdone Landscape Architects, Jackson, Wyoming
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALLEN KENNEDY AND AIDAN BRADLE
Jackson's wide-open spaces and old ranch lands are spectacular. Set against a backdrop of the Grand Tetons, the land is environmentally fragile and facing encroachment from the town's continuing growth. It's no wonder, then, that Teton County has some of the strictest zoning regulations
and overlays in the West, aimed at protecting the local environment and scenery.
The thought of plopping down a 710-acre golf-course development in the midst of all this pristine beauty might have raised more than a few eyebrows and hackles in these parts, but 3 Creek Ranch did it all right, even down to the Raptor Recovery Center on site and the fishing master employed there to monitor trout activity in the creeks. The planning and the landscape architecture, done by Jim Verdone and his team from Verdone Landscape Architects, garnered a special 2006 Land Stewardship Award and Merit Award for design from the Colorado Chapter ASLA, which also encompasses Wyoming.
A covered bridge, aspen and a pond greet residents and visitors at the entrance to 3 Creek Ranch.
Verdone began work on the project not long after the client acquired the property, located just outside Jackson, in 2000. It had originally been the 4 Lazy F Ranch, owned by the Frew family from Pittsburgh, who used it as a family guest ranch and fly-fishing retreat. They also raised cattle and grew hay there. The lower portion of the ranch is a series of wetlands and laced with the Spring, Cody and Blue Crane creeks-hence the development's name.
"There's a natural resource overlay for the wildlife here," explains Verdone, "which includes moose, elk, trumpeter swans and the Snake River cutthroat trout. There's also a scenic overlay, because the ranch is part of a scenic corridor." Undaunted by the restrictions, Verdone began planning out a community that includes an 18-hole Rees Jones–designed golf course and 136 residential units, ranging from half-acre cabin sites to 35-acre ranch settings. "The client appreciated the setting and wanted to do everything right," says Verdone of the environmental regulations. "The project went through (the approval process) at an unheard-of speed."
Adirondack chairs overlook the frost-covered wetlands near the nature center.
The key issue for the project was the impact the golf course and housing would have on the property, specifically the water quality of the creeks and wetlands. "We did an environmental inventory on the property and adjusted the golf element around it," says the landscape architect. "We also coordinated a detailed golf management plan." The plan involved working with a team of consultants, experts in wildlife, fisheries, wetlands and more. Soils and groundwater were tested, standards were set for grading and drainage, and certain fertilizers and chemicals were banned from use on the course. A system was set up to filter the runoff. "This was all also carried over to the residential component of the project," says Verdone.
As important as the golf course was to the project, the creeks, the wildlife and the fly-fishing were also key points to the development. An existing cabin was renovated to become a creekside nature center, where a deck overlooks a series of ponds developed to become the swan habitat. The adjacent raptor center allows injured birds a chance to recover and provides a locale for birding programs. Homeowners can walk out their front doors and cast away for trout.
Fly fishing is a major element of 3 Creek Ranch.
While Verdone and his team handled the planning for the ranch, they also did the landscape architecture for the project's public buildings and the cabins, designed by Carney Architects, also of Jackson. The public buildings include a covered bridge that signals the entry to the development, and a clubhouse and a pool/fitness building. Additionally, Verdone is doing the landscapes for many of the other homes in the development.
"The theme for the landscape design was to keep the open, native look," says Verdone. Revegetation included the use of sagebrush, sedges and native grasses, allowing homeowners and visitors to enjoy long views of the creeks and the Tetons. Privacy for homes was achieved through siting, grading and the use of larger shrubs. "We kept the taller trees, such as the cottonwoods, willows, spruce and aspen, along the perimeter of the project," he says. "We also used some taller trees around structures, such as the entrance and clubhouse, like they used to do at the old ranch houses here."
An old cabin now serves as the community's nature center.
The project has met not only with design success, but market success as well. The golf course has been open for about two years, and all the lots have been sold. Many, apparently, have bought into 3 Creek Ranch's careful stewardship of those wide open spaces.
Planning and landscape architecture: Verdone Landscape Architects,
Jackson, WY; (307) 733-3062 or www.verdonelandarch.com.
Architecture: Carney Architects, Jackson, (307) 733-4000 or www.carneyarchitects.com.
South Fork Lodge, Swan Valley, Idaho
Herbert R. Schall, FASLA, EDAW, Inc., Fort Collins, Colorado
PHOTOGRAPHY BY HERB SCHAAL
For years, the South Fork Lodge outside of Swan Valley, Idaho had been a small but popular mom-and-pop type of operation, a fly-fishing retreat with a restaurant and an RV campground. While many a good fish tale might have been told there over the decades, the site itself didn't do much to enhance the spectacular scenery of this particular bend in Snake River. Concrete RV pads, lawns and haphazardly placed buildings dotted the river bank.
When the 30-acre property came up for sale in 1997, Mark Rockefeller saw a diamond in the rough. Along with landscape architect Herbert R. Schaal, principal of EDAW, Inc. in Fort Collins, Colorado, Rockefeller envisioned an environmentally friendly fishing resort, something more in line with the area's natural beauty.
 Spectacular views of river and mountains mark South Fork Lodge. Cottonwoods were reintroduced to this portion of the river.
Rockefeller, of New York, spent boyhood summers at a ranch founded by his grandfather, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. "My uncle, Laurance Rockefeller, always made it available for members of the family to use as a getaway," he explains. "I always loved the beauty of the area, but when I graduated from college, I wanted something for myself. In 1991, we found a collection of ranch properties along the Snake River in eastern Idaho that we bought as an investment and a retreat."
Through an architect, Rockefeller found Schaal and asked him to spearhead some long-term improvements and environmental restoration for the ranch, including returning old wheat fields to native prairie and building roads for accessibility. When the South Fork Lodge became available a few miles upriver from his ranch, it seemed like an ideal project to continue Rockefeller's environmental efforts along the Snake.
Cabin units were tucked into the land and screened behind spruce.
"The site was not very attractive," says Schaal, recalling the first time he saw the property in its original state. Not only that, but in 1997, a 100-year flood destabilized the river banks.
The project's first items of business were to clean up the site, which included removal of lawns and concrete RV pads, and to stabilize the river banks. Under the supervision of Schaal and a team of consultants that included hydraulic engineers, the banks were backfilled with clay and shored up with boulder spurs, which direct the fast water away from the banks. The boulder spurs also create pools for fish and platforms for fly-fishing.
Land around the main lodge was revegetated with native prairie plants.
A small pond and wetlands were added to the site to encourage visits by wildlife, which include moose, fox, osprey, trumpeter swans and bald eagles. Away from the river, Schaal supervised the restoration of the natural alluvial plain, creating a native prairie that was seeded with yarrow, sage and rabbitbrush. The site was also heavily planted with trees, including cottonwoods, spruce, willows and aspen, which help shield the property from the adjacent scenic byway.
Schaal helped site the main lodge building, designed by Sasaki Associates of San Francisco in association with Hawtin Jorgensen Architects of Jackson, Wyoming, so that the restaurant has views up- and downstream at a bend in the river. Cabin units were also placed carefully on the site, for maximum scenery and minimum impact.
Constructed wetlands on the site invite wildlife.
An innovative aspect of the project was the creation of a submerged wetland wastewater treatment system, Schaal notes. "A standard septic system would have taken up too much of the site," he says. "With this system, the wastewater gets filtered through gravel, wetland plants and sand before being released into the groundwater. It's the first of its kind in the state, well monitored and very clean. No extra nutrients are released into the river."
The project opened to the public in 2000 as an inviting, luxurious retreat focused on the river's many charms. "The landscape is natural, peaceful," says Rockefeller. "When you walk it, you can't help but enjoy it."
The lodge's restaurant was sited to capture views of the river.
Apparently jurors in the 2006 Colorado Chapter ASLA design competition agreed. They gave the project an Honor Award, citing its many environmental accomplishments.
Landscape architecture: EDAW, Inc., Fort Collins, CO; (970) 484-6073 or www.edaw.com.
Architecture: Sasaki Associates, San Francisco, CA; (415) 776-7272 or www.sasaki.com; and Hawtin Jorgensen Architects, Jackson, WY, (307) 733-4364 or www.hawtinjorgensen.com.
One of the major efforts at the site was to stabilize the river banks, which had been badly eroded during a flood. Tall trees shield the lodge from a nearby roadway.
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