Hillside View Garden
A backyard renewal built on one move — the new deck rises to meet the house's finished floor, so stepping into the garden is as easy as walking across the kitchen. The hillside view stays untouched above California-native planting.
No step between the kitchen and the garden.
The organizing move here is a level. The new deck rises to meet the house's finished floor elevation, so the garden begins where the kitchen ends — you walk out, not down. It's the difference between a backyard you look at and one you're actually in, and it's a quiet piece of aging-in-place design: a threshold is a barrier, and this one is gone for good.
From that level deck, the rest follows. I placed the pergola to shade the outdoor room without touching the kitchen window's sightline to the hills. California-native planting softens the retaining wall below and stays deliberately low — the hillside view is the one thing on this property nothing is allowed to block.
The project is in schematic design — the phase where the big moves get decided. This page will grow as the work does.