DESIGN by SCENIC LANDSCAPING
INTERIORS PHOTOGRAPHY by HEATHER KNAPP
TEXT by DARIUS AMOS
Relocating to another part of town may not sound like starting anew, but Eric and Nicole Freeman’s move from one Westfield neighborhood to the next came with an entirely blank slate. After several years at their old address, the couple purchased a lot a little more than a mile away on which to build their dream home.
“They wanted a design inspired by the Hamptons,” recalls Brian Parks, a designer at Haskell-based Scenic Landscaping, who was hired in 2023 to create an outdoor oasis in the backyard. Parks’s team worked with the Freemans as well as the architect of the new home, Michael Moritz of Stonewater Architecture, to ensure that what they did outside was in harmony with the interior.
The first job in the backyard was to build a custom swimming pool. Tranquility Pools, Scenic Landscaping’s pool company, designed one in a rectangular shape with a built-in spa and automatic cover. It also was built with a sun shelf, so that the family and their friends could relax in loungers without leaving the water.
“They love to entertain and have people over, so having this pool was very important to them,” Parks says. Scenic Landscaping completed the next phase, which included an island grill, a dining area and a patio made with Marmiro Stones marble, the same material used inside the home as well as the outdoor fireplace area.
“We took the same masonry marble for the hardscape, so the outside is truly an extension of the inside,” Parks says.
To soften the hardscaping and give it crisp visual appeal, Parks created a lattice design on the patio using artificial grass. The same artificial grass also was installed in place of a real lawn.
“Turf has come a long way over the years, and this looks and feels like real grass,” he says. “For this application, it came down to maintenance. I love grass, but turf is much easier to maintain, and you wouldn’t want to roll mowers and heavy equipment over the marble to get to the lawn.”
For the last phase of the project, Tapestry Landscape Architecture, Scenic’s landscape design company, selected the right plants for the property. Evergreens, for example, were planted along the perimeter so that, in time, they will create a natural screen.
“We kept everything else simple, with clean boxwoods and hydrangeas elsewhere in the yard,” Parks says. “We really created the oasis the family wanted.”
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