West Lake Residence

Pressley Associates Landscape Architecture • Site Planning • Urban Design • Historic Preservation

1035 Cambridge Street, Suite 27 Cambridge, MA 02141 t 617-491-5300 f 617-491-7502 www.pressleyinc.com

West Lake ResidenceSkaneateles, NY



Initial Concept

Working with Meyer and Meyer Architects’ redesign and expansion of a late 19th-century lakeside house, Pressley Associates helped the owners achieve a waterfront home with a Newport mansion grandeur.

Site size:

2 acres

Program:

Residential

landscaping

Services:

Site planning,

landscape design

Completion:

2012

Client:

Meyer and Meyer

Architects



Lasting Impact

The entire property slopes down toward the lake at an average 14% grade. Terraces and walls create and differentiate

usable, level areas, each with its own theme and purpose. These landscape spaces are divided into garden “rooms” with

distinctive characteristics and aesthetic elements.



Water Garden and Lawn Terrace: Before

An underutilized back yard fronted by an undistinguished ranch dwelling received a limestone balustrade, an evergreen

hedge, a limestone/wood pergola, and a koi pond fountain court to be reframed and revived as...



Water Garden and Lawn Terrace: After

...the Water Garden, an ornamental pleasure ground with the style, grace and haute couture of a French country

manor landscape. The pond is home to water lilies and lotuses.

Overlooking the Water Garden and West Lake is the Lawn Terrace, a green patio situated directly off the house’s ground

floor, enabling the owners to step out and enjoy their garden of delights.



The ‘Eclipse’

Accessible by an arbor-covered passage (the “Eclipse”) through the Water Garden’s tall

evergreen hedge is...



Ellipse Garden

...the Ellipse Garden, designed for the owners’ everyday use, and for special events.

A gently bowing fieldstone grotto, topped by a limestone balustrade and flanked by

staircases, adds picturesque pomp.



Driveway

The driveway follows a route that reveals a sequence of views of the new landscape,

a row of hornbeam trees bordering the lake, a privet hedge...



Porte-cochère

...and the extraordinary house. Magnolia trees grace the end of the driveway,

complementing the nature inspiration of the Arts-and-Crafts porte-cochère.



Wildflower walk

Along the southern edge of the lawn is a meandering path through a lovely natural area leading to the water’s edge, profusely

planted with peonies and other perennials for a wildflower effect.



Perennial beds

Bulbs fill the perennial beds in the spring and blossom into hydrangeas, peonies, black-eyed Susans, ornamental grasses

and additional plants in the summer, changing the landscape color with the seasons.



Flowers and fire

Beautiful annuals enrich a limestone fire

pit. A rest on its bench offers a

breathtaking view of West Lake.



Cliffs of color

Perennials splash the slopes of the grotto staircases with

cliffs of color.



Night . . .

Accent lighting highlights the architectural and natural elements of the Water Garden and its trellis, unifying the organic and

the geometric, the natural and the manmade, as a total visual experience.



. . . and day

The porte-cochère takes

in the panorama of the

driveway landscape,

unifying

the structure’s natural

attributes — random

ashlar fieldstone,

curvilinear wood — with

the nature that unfolds

before it.

Sunlight shadows

the trellis walkway

with the crisscross

pattern of the

overhead slats and

rafters, giving the

promenade a

sense of shelter

and order as a

contrast to

nature’s open

ramble.



Thank you for watching!

For more information about Pressley Associates Landscape Architects,

contact Bill Pressley at 617-491-5300 or [email protected], visit our

website at www.pressleyinc.com, or visit us on:

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.pressleyinc.com/

Documents

West Lake Residence