At first glance the hero of a modern new home in Southampton, Long Island, might be architect Blaze Makoid. But the unsung heroes here are landscape architects from LaGuardia Design Group— along with interior architects Halliday Greer. Makoid’s design rises 10 feet above grade, a glassy gem on a barrier island overlooking the Atlantic Ocean to the south and Shinnecock Bay to the north.

The clients purchased their five-and-a-half-acre lot with zoning already approved, locking in the home’s size and location. That presented the designers with both challenges and opportunities. “We knew that if we had to go back with anything that changed it, that would kick the project back to square one,” Makoid says.

It was prescribed for six bedrooms, but the clients wanted 11, anticipating the eventual return of three children, post-college, with grandchildren. So the architect designed a series of suites—each with a bedroom for parents and another for children.

Then there was the entertainment question. “They’ll have really large groups of 20, 30, or 40 people over,” he says. “The expanding dining table seats 60.” The landscape architects shaped the ocean side to accommodate guests. “There’s a whole slew of seating areas outside,” he says. “On move-in day, we counted over 80 seats.”

That was just a finishing touch. It came only after LaGuardia already had reconstructed the landscape around the home. “We reimagined that property, regraded it, replaned it, and ripped out non-native plants,” Chris LaGuardia says.

A 1980s house of no real significance was taken down. Its north side had been one big driveway, with a lawn leading to the distant bay. A lower level was dominated by a freshwater-loving, cattail-like weed called phragmite, growing over clogged culverts. “The big part was to restore the wetlands to a tidal marsh,” says Daniel Tharp, partner in the firm.

They unclogged culverts, cut back weeds, and planted native grasses over a couple of acres of wetlands. “Saltwater infiltrates the culvert today,” he says. “We introduced some pollinator perennials like flowering milkweed, marshmallow, and joe-pye weed for bees and butterflies.”

On the ocean side, a series of compromised sand dunes offered their own challenge. Ragged and uneven, they were at the point of collapse. The designers approached village and state officials, who gave permission to reshape the site.

They removed a 15-foot-tall elevated bridge, 300 feet long, that once served as a walkway to the beach. Replacing it with a sandy dune walk, they began reshaping the rest of the area between house and beach. “There are terracing and subtle lifts in grade— we were restoring the natural contours,” LaGuardia says.

From the house to the pool, and then down to the beach, the landscape is now carefully punctuated with visitor-friendly spaces. Reshaped planes and new vegetation accommodate them, for seating areas where large and small groups gather. Around the house, the landscape architects planted maritime species, like those on the dunes, for a seamless setting.

Back on the bay side, the designers raised the approach to the house up off the natural grade, without stairs. The path to the front door is created from layers of two-to-three slabs of Valders limestone atop one another, eschewing steps and handrails. “We used the landscape to get to the front door softly,” Makoid says.

He used a different limestone, Chanteuil Jaune Bleu, to clad the building, along with black-stained cedar for a Japanese shou sugi ban look, one that reaches into the interior too. “Blaze was integrating the interior with the exterior,” says David Greer, principal in Halliday Greer Interior Architecture. “It’s a classic modernist approach, designed so it wraps around the house and comes inside as well.”

This is the seventh project for this client by Greer and his partner Andrew Halliday. Greer is an architect by training; Halliday is a designer and former actor on the London stage. They both have exquisite taste; here, the pair took on the role of consulting designers for all interiors.

“Our design intent is to want things to be timeless, not designed toward trends,” Greer says. “It’s a blend of classic, modern, and contemporary. We try to create a space where you do it right the first time and never do it again.” That’s an attitude shared by all the designers for this house in the most exclusive neighborhood in the Hamptons.

And it paid off in spades. On approach from the bay side, views shoot straight through, out to the ocean. From the interior, the eye is drawn back toward the bay, the driveway hidden from sight. “It’s an optical illusion,” Makoid says. “You only see the water and the sun.”

That’s no accident. Rather, it’s one more heroic gesture from a team of architects, landscape architects, and interior designers, all aimed at aligning this home with its site.

When Greg Lombardi drives to his weekend home in Provincetown, Massachusetts, on Friday nights, he pauses on the front porch to listen to the billowing song of the plants swaying in the darkness. Sometimes he is so eager to see what has grown or changed in his absence that he inspects the garden with a flashlight. Lombardi, a noted landscape architect, and his partner, Kent Newton, bought the home in 2017 “as an escape hatch” from their fast-paced Boston lives.

They first came across the historic 1960s home when a friend booked it as a vacation property for a group getaway. “I pulled up in front of this forlorn house and felt heartbroken,” Lombardi remembers. “I thought, How am I going to spend a week in this place?” But it grew on him almost immediately. The home is perched on a hill with large windows boasting views of the Long Point Lighthouse and is situated on one of the seaside town’s busiest drags. The design doesn’t fit in with the neighbors’ classic beach cottages, and that’s precisely what won Lombardi over. “We get to be Bohemian pirates here,” he laughs.

The couple purchased the home in 2017 and, amazingly, the renovation plans passed the Provincetown Historic Commission’s vote on the first go-round. With the help of LDA Architects, the couple moved the kitchen to the second floor, and that shift led to a total reimagining of the house, with a sleek front porch, and shiplap, and cedar board-and-batten awakening the exterior. The project was completed in 2019, just in time to hold a family gathering for Thanksgiving before it became a haven during the pandemic.

Reached by stone steps, a pollinator garden on the front slope attracts monarch butterflies, goldfinches, and bumblebees, all interacting with milkweed that seeded over from an adjacent property and Lombardi welcomed happily. The wide swath of driveway was repaved in reclaimed Chinese planks supplied by Stone Curators in Newburyport, and Lombardi sips his coffee there in the mornings with his two pugs, greeting neighbors passing by on strolls and jogs. “For better or worse, it’s a very exposed public site and there’s a fair amount of traffic on the street,” he says. Tourists and townspeople parading down the main stretch often roll their car windows down to comment on the unusual home and introduce themselves. The lack of privacy can be overwhelming but is made up for by the genuine warmth of the community.

When it came to the garden, “I wanted it to be a little impolite,” confesses Lombardi. “Because it doesn’t necessarily fit with the neighbors, it became an announcement of thinking outside the box.” This free-spirited banquet of chromatic opposites is a far cry from the traditional hydrangeas one would expect to find at a seaside retreat. Color guard yucca (yucca filamentosa) in variegated yellows, purple irises, little geums in Totally Tangerine, and even a stalky South African variety fittingly named “Red Hot Poker” (Kniphofia uvaria) add a bold palette that doesn’t take itself too seriously and plays off the front door painted Naples Blue by Benjamin Moore. A Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) with leaves the color of ripening plums is what remains of the original foliage, while various sages add overall textural interest.

The backyard posed an unexpected challenge early on when a steep slope hemmed in by old retaining walls began to collapse. Fearing that the land would quickly become a mud pit if they didn’t take immediate action, Lombardi quickly put in two poured concrete retaining walls and then scrambled to design away from the Brutalist mood created by their stark, functional presence. “In that moment, I became as over-committed to the landscape as my own client,” he recalls. Altogether, an overwhelming 1,000 plants were included in the landscape design. Schumacher Companies achieved the hardscape, while R.P. Marzilli & Company did the planting installation, and Parterre Garden Services supplied plant material.

Ultimately, Lombardi believes, “For vacation homes, you have to find a way to be alone together. If you don’t, it can feel very crowded and people get agitated. Everyone needs space, so I thought hard about how to break up different centers of gravity on this property.” To that end, there is a balcony on the second floor shaded by a custom canopy and featuring a bar that cozies up to folding windows for a versatile inside/outside entertaining element. Expansive grass below welcomes children, while a fireplace table seating area adds an outdoor lounge space for the grownups. Around the side of the house, a wild bamboo grove channels Bali holidays, with a path leading to an outdoor shower for rinsing beach sand off before cocktail hour inevitably starts up. 

For more information, visit lombardidesign.com; dschumacher.com; rpmarzilli.com; parterregarden.com.

From its high perch on the bluffs of Martha’s Vineyard, this coveted parcel delivers big views due east over Nantucket Sound. Dubbed “Big Bluff,” the home sits near the tip of East Chop, the northernmost head of land in the town of Oak Bluffs. East Chop Lighthouse is just down the street, and East Chop Drive—popular with walkers, joggers, and bicyclists for its stunning scenery—winds around the property’s outer edge.

The lot’s original home was a beloved fixture in the historic neighborhood; however, it ultimately succumbed to lack of upkeep and weather exposure. When the property changed hands in 2017, the new owners tasked island-based Hutker Architects with designing a Shingle-style structure honoring the original’s character. Meanwhile, they turned to Dan Gordon Landscape Architects to develop a landscape befitting the prominent site. 

“It’s a unique situation in that the residence is actually comprised of two buildings: a main home on the shore and a guest house to the rear,” explains principal Dan Gordon, who collaborated with senior associate Patrick Taylor on the project. “Our job was to provide circulation between the parcels and tie them together with a connecting vocabulary,” Gordon relates. 

In between the main dwelling and guest home (called, you guessed it, “Little Bluff”) is a low-use town road that presented a unique challenge to the designers’ unification efforts. Their response was to create a strong central axis: a bluestone walkway that stretches from the guest home, to the rear of the main home, and lastly across the front yard to the outer hedge. The only breaks in the walkway’s continuity are the road and the main home’s mass. 

Alternating the width of the bluestone steppers created a wavelike pattern, a subtle nod to the seaside atmosphere. “We pushed and pulled the edges; it’s a little playful, a little different,” says Gordon. “Our goal was to strike that balance between a clean, classic look and something a little more contemporary and fun.”

Twin arbor structures—crafted from western red cedar and placed on either side of the town road—further reinforce the connection between the two lots. “They act as gateways to their respective houses,” explains Taylor, “and their character complements the prevailing Shingle-style architecture.”  

For the main home, the landscape architects decided against elaborate foundation plantings, keeping the outline clean and uncluttered with a stone skirt. Then, open lawn sweeps out toward a neat viburnum hedge. On this coastal side, where the property is more visible, Gordon and Taylor came up with the idea of a secret garden, a surprise treat for passersby. 

“We extended the hedge so that it spirals around a flagpole marking the lot’s northernmost point,” notes Taylor. Within the hedge outline, repeating riffs of Endless Summer hydrangeas, Russian sage, and Karl Foerster grasses form a classic summer palette. “It’s such an exposed site that it really lends itself to summer plantings,” he adds. 

One of the clients’ special requests was to have gardens for cut flowers and veggies close at hand. The architects tucked these functional beds along the property line on the home’s more private side. Three beds with bluestone banding feature cutting-friendly perennials like Russian sage, Verbena bonariensis, and Agastache ‘Blue Fortune,’ plus extra room for annuals of the clients’ choosing. Closer to the house are three vegetable beds, complete with a custom red cedar support for tomatoes and peas. 

When the clients asked for plenty of bike storage, the architects delivered a custom bike stand: a large slab of bluestone with notches to stabilize the front tires. Sited at the base of the main home’s arbor, the bike rack reads as part of the hardscape, fitting in aesthetically while delivering practicality. “Downtown Oak Bluffs is just a short cycle away. The kids ride around on summer evenings; it’s very much a biking community,” notes Gordon.  

Passing ferries, fresh veggies, colorful blooms, lawn games, sunsets, and relaxing on the front porch to take in the view—this coastal property is now an ode to summer living. It’s quintessential Martha’s Vineyard.   

For more information, visit dangordon.com; landscopeinc.com; hutkerarchitects.com; jgemv.com; perfectionfence.com.

Shaped privet hedges meet untamed swathes of periwinkle hydrangeas and layer upon layer of herbaceous plantings that sway in the Atlantic salt breeze. Greenwich, Connecticut–based landscape designer James Doyle and his team at James Doyle Design Associates have cultivated a Nantucket sanctuary here on the island’s bluffs.

The clients had very specific needs and wants because they spend a lot of time on the island from mid-summer into the fall. The large family gatherings that they host form the mainstay of their season. “Much of the landscape design was programmed around their need for outdoor entertaining and coastal views. The plant palette was dictated by varieties that flower at the height of summer,” explains Doyle. Another consideration was the heartiness of the plantings, which would need to be sufficiently salt-tolerant to withstand the moodiness of a seaside climate.

Doyle and his team began conceiving and installing the garden before the original residence was fully demolished and the foundation was laid for the new structure. The timeless shingled beach house, complete with a tranquil screened-in porch and multiple viewing decks, was designed by Nantucket-based architectural firm Botticelli & Pohl. As a result of this process, the home’s design truly responds to the landscape and the natural environment—and most importantly, to the ocean’s presence, which permeates everything. 

Because the clients’ goal was to maximize Atlantic views, the new home was constructed two feet higher in elevation than the original structure. That decision dictated the garden’s functional layout and all the transitions from the driveway to the cabana, posing unique challenges to planting on gradation and preventing erosion. Additionally, Nantucket has strict regulations for all renovation projects, so Doyle’s plans had to meet the approval of the island’s Historic District Commission.

The front of the home is far more formal and manicured than what awaits behind. Guests are welcomed by a broad driveway paved in crushed clam shells that were sourced locally. Amelanchier lamarkii trees add both height and structure. Doyle says, “One of our goals was to create many separate conversation spaces within the landscape.” To that end, a welcome garden is framed in manicured hedges, and there is also a grouping of Adirondack chairs for greeting friends upon arrival with glasses of cold lemonade. Though the lot is less than an acre in size, the distinct seating areas give an expansive effect. 

An oyster shell path leads through a white picket side gate—and it’s at this point that the landscape begins to spill over onto pathways with a blurry softness that channels Impressionist brushstrokes. Lavenders, lacey whites, and sage greens come together in easygoing botanic harmony. On the other side of the home, a similar path is carpeted in thick lawn and equipped with a double gate that can be opened wide to allow for event planners or caterers to easily set up for an event. 

The serene rectangular swimming pool with inviting spa headlines a backyard just waiting to come to life with friends, family, and music. “The challenge here,” explains Doyle, was to make sure that the space wasn’t overwhelmed by the functional [Bluestone] hardscape. “We’ve added jointed pavers, just to bring some softness to the area with grass.” A luxurious seaside cabana expertly hides the engineering of gradation behind, surrounded by abundant green lawn. Hydrangeas, the quintessential New England summer flower, bring a classic feeling to the space. Doyle brought in varieties including Endless Summer, Lanarth White, and Tardiva, much to the delight of the clients who had specified their preference for this summer shrub. 

On the edge of the property is an intimate firepit seating area—the perfect place for enjoying s’mores with the kids or late-night drinks and stargazing. The landscaping, which includes bayberry, a plant native to the area, feels so organic that it becomes challenging to distinguish it from the wild grass that layers the sand dunes beyond.

Doyle says, “These garden spaces are not just great physical experiences outside, but also, as you move through the interior of the home, you’re looking out over all these different areas. You can see the color in the foreground and yet you’ve also got the long, distant views of the ocean.” The playful serenity of the landscape is unforgettable. 

For more information, visit James Doyle Design Associates jdda.com; Architect: Botticelli & Pohl Architects; General Contractor: Hehir Group Custom Builders; Landscape Contractor: Wisentaner, Inc.