A Sense of Arrival — Many properties are beautiful unto themselves, but they have functional problems that have to be reckoned with.
In this case, an old farm house located on a 7-acre parcel of land was positioned in the upper corner of the parcel. The front of the house was 50 feet off of the side property line. The driveway came straight off of a local road at the apex of a hair pin curve and proceeded in a straight line sandwiched between the property line and the house.
Those unfamiliar with the area sometimes mistook the drive as a continuation of the road, and as a result, it was not uncommon for strange cars to wander onto the property.
The challenge of this project was to create an entry for the house to differentiate the drive from the road and to provide a sense of arrival to a newly renovated front entrance.
A series of design elements were introduced that indicated direction, accented arrival to the entry, and indicated privacy. Direction was provided by reducing the width of the drive and installing curbing and a row of flowering trees.
A sense of arrival was achieved by designating a courtyard at the front entrance the perimeter of which was lined with a custom-designed fence and low boxwood hedge. These elements also indicated privacy to visitors who once thought the drive was a road.
To complete the design, a simple but complementary selection of deer resistant plantings were installed along the base of the house and fencing to provide color and seasonal interest.