By Julie Moir Messervy and Sarah Susanka

An existing irrigation ditch was reworked to become a meandering stream that flows next to the house, above . The cobblestone driveway, below, creates a charming village look, blurring the lines between nature and the man made. Though a neighbor’s home sits just beyond the fence, above, this house feels secluded thanks to the landscape design. The brook, below, created by interspersing rocks with patches of moss, ferns, or grasses breaks up the stone shoreline. Landscape Architect: Suzanne Richman, Design Workshop www.designworkshop.com

An available in-town site on the banks of a river is rare to discover and, though local ordinances bar it, it’s very tempting to build a house there. The clear challenge of this narrow Aspen, Colorado, location on the Roaring Fork River was to create a unique and functional landscape of home on the property while respecting the rules governing riverfront development here. So landscape architect Suzanne Richman chose to build her own river.

Richman uncovered an existing irrigation ditch and reworked it to become a meandering stream that flows next to the house and down to the Roaring Fork. Highlighted with large boulders and small pebbles, flowering perennials, and recirculating water, the stream is punctuated with several ponds, each treated as a feature in itself. The resulting woodland fill delights her clients and has truly come to be their landscape of home.

On a long, thin site like this, spatial layering, or adding detail at various tiers, helps create a sense of depth along the property line. At the top of the garden, Richman built 6-foot-high walls and planted aspen trees to screen the walls so that the close boundaries of the site vanish among the layers of vegetation. In front of the aspens, she planted billowing perennials that act as an informal shoreline for a rocky rivulet. These layers hide and reveal the narrow garden in front of the wall, making it feel more spacious than it actually is.

The principle of layering has been applied throughout the design to produce a gradation of interior to exterior places. The wraparound porch creates a covered indoor-outdoor realm in which to sit or stroll. The repetition of a single form in many guises helps to weave together the gradation of spaces. For this, Richman chose a circle, echoing the geometry that designer Michael Thompson used inside the house. You encounter the circle in metal grading underfoot, in the jewel-like spheres of glass found in the porch railing, and in the circular roof and oculus of the away-room turret.

At its heart, the landscape of home should be thought of as a realm, a kingdom in the world, and as such, every corner is worthy of thoughtful design. The way the landscape has been crafted to give the impression of a woodland sanctuary is masterful, and it holds many lessons for those of us with smaller dwelling places. The numerous layers of structure, patio, streams, and plantings beautifully illustrate how an integrated approach to inside and outside design can give the illusion of more territory than there really is.

Excerpted from Outside the Not So Big House: Creating the Landscape of Home, by Julie Moir Messervy and Sarah Susanka, photography by Grey Crawford, the Taunton Press, 2006.