I saw the romance in stone. And Santa Barbara has a very signature stone: sandstone. It’s indigenous to this region, sourced in boulders from the Santa Ynez Mountains. Though some of my initial thinking went to brick — it was timeless, storybook, would look amazing on a curving, meandering path — I thought, how lovely would it be if we could tie the defining feature of our design to the very mountains we admire in the distance every day?

So the pavers were selected, and we landed on an arrangement we loved. The sandstone would be laid in a basketweave pattern, with thick mortar lines. The pathway to our front door would curve in a soft S, a nod to the brick pathways we had been drawn to from the beginning, but expressed in a way that felt like ours.

Our attention then turned to ground cover, and having gravel throughout the yard was always the first feature I had imagined.

In my mind, gravel was the most romantic. Dreamy, tactile, the kind of material that took me straight back to Greece. It felt almost too perfect that something so transportive could also be the most economical, low-maintenance, and appropriate for a drought-tolerant garden.

So the plan was a harmony of stone: pavers of sandstone laid in a basketweave pattern, with mortar the color of sand on the beach. An expansive patio, with a dining area on one side and a large outdoor sectional on the other. Gravel filling the spaces around and in between, relaxed and imperfect.

We worked with a professional team to install the hardscaping, a partnership between our landscaper and stonemason. The installation was, without question, the biggest investment we made in the project. But for a bid that felt fair and an impact we knew would be transformative, it was a move we made with zero regrets.

As the stones were laid, the blueprint for how we would move through and use the yard began to emerge. Paths for walking. Areas for gathering, dining, sitting with a book. Openings where plants could grow. The perfect place for a limestone fountain, one of the dream items on our list.

Looking back, it’s the part of the process that was most fulfilling, and the feature that still stops us in our tracks today. It taught us the importance of a strong foundation. Of giving a space guardrails, and room to breathe.

And it taught us that a garden, at its core, is something you build from the ground up.

materials, for reference:

sandstone pavers: cherokee random 4x8” / gravel: california gold 5/8” / mortar: sand tone, matched onsite

Over the past few years, one of the questions that comes up most is how we actually designed this yard, and the answer has many layers.

Our inspiration was clear. We had many concrete ideas. I knew the feeling we were after, the palette, the materials, and even many of the plants. But we needed a visual way to articulate everything that existed in our minds.

Yardzen brought our vision into focus.

We had explored a few different paths at the beginning (including working with local landscape architects), but what resonated most was a process that felt both accessible and iterative, something we could engage with over time, on our timeline which felt fluid and unknown.

At the start of the Yardzen process, we shared everything we had with them: comprehensive photos and videos from every angle of the yard, Pinterest boards, notes, and one very long, narrative email about our hopes and dreams for a space that felt deeply important to us. They took those elements and turned them into something we could react to and continue refining.

The turnaround was fast. They quoted around four weeks, but we had a first draft in two. I had many notes, and they patiently took every comment, question, addition, and subtraction and came back with revisions soon after. We repeated the process a few more times (I’m a woman of many opinions.) Throughout, the experience was easy and the team was responsive and thoughtful.

Yardzen didn’t provide the most technical set of construction documents that we could immediately execute from. There were things that needed to be figured out on the ground: grading, spacing, how things would actually sit and flow in real life. My husband worked through much of that himself, and we leaned heavily on his engineering and construction expertise, as well as our landscaper and stonemason, to bring the details to life.

We also didn’t use Yardzen to source or manage contractors. Instead, we sourced directly from our local community, following word of mouth and finding partners who understood the nuances of our climate and how we wanted the space to feel. In partnership with our landscaper, we refined the plant palette in person, making adjustments based on what was actually thriving here.

Looking back, the framework Yardzen provided was critical to our process. The process itself was interactive and the renderings helped me see the vision clearly, giving us both guidance and momentum. Our early planning felt much less abstract with their partnership.

Yardzen became a bridge between what we could imagine and what we could actually build. It gave us enough clarity to move forward, and enough flexibility to let the space evolve into something that felt like ours.

And from there, we began building in phases, slowly and with intention, letting each part take shape… in its own time.

When we got the house, equal parts adrenaline and overwhelm set in. This was our first house together, and most likely our forever one. I grew up in a city and had never had outdoor space like this in my life. Where would we even start?

But luckily, the dreaming part was easy. We pictured a serene oasis I could tend to and enjoy on the weekends. A space my husband could grow into in retirement. Slow mornings with coffee before each work day. Dinners alfresco with friends that stretched into the evening under string lights. Catching glimpses of the garden from the kitchen window.

Further inspired by our honeymoon in Greece and vacations in the idyllic Mediterranean, I was deeply compelled by spaces rooted in the old world. Sun-baked stone and old, patinaed terracotta. A landscape that endured long, dry summers and evoked ease and longevity where it lacked in lushness. The sight of vibrant, jewel-toned citrus against the deep blue of the Aegean Sea. Gravel paths as old as the rows of olive trees above them.

And lastly, it needed to be grounded in our coastal surroundings here in Santa Barbara, whose climate fortuitously echoed the places we’ve loved most.

And so we started searching for inspiration, at first in typical fashion. I made a Pinterest board of course and pinned away. The vision in my head felt so clear I could touch it.

But we were chasing more than images. We wanted this yard to evoke something palpable. Instill calm. Offer escape from our everyday, busy minds.

So I got off my phone and went out into the physical world.

We took long walks through the neighborhoods around us. If we saw a front yard we loved, we’d pause. If a friendly face was nearby, we’d ask questions.

And it was within a five-block radius of our home we saw so much: The way a path curved and meandered from the sidewalk to the front door. Evergreens, in every texture and every shade of green: celadon, sage, chartreuse. Perennials, in bloom and dormant.

We learned the best fertilizer to use on a tangerine tree from someone who had grown a veritable citrus grove in her yard over several decades (16-16-16, apparently). We learned that the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden had a nursery and that you wouldn’t need to buy a ticket to shop for plants there. We got referrals for who would ultimately be our landscaper and our stonemason from a wealthy tech founder who had the most beautiful stonework in his yard we had ever seen.

I had folders of “perfect.” Instagram-worthy visuals that hit every aesthetic note. But our deepest inspiration came from the real-life gardens around us, and the humans who tended them.

And slowly, we began to build something truly ours.
A garden with structure, but intentionally a little undone. Wild, even.
Inspired by far-off places, still rooted in where we live today.
Designed for aspirational entertaining, but at the end of the day, really for us.

We couldn’t wait to bring it to life.

It’s a declaration he knows I would never make lightly. This project has been an ongoing exercise in doing (Jim), undoing (me), and trying again (us). Four years of planning, tough decisions, things we changed, things we left alone, a million learnings, and even a regret here and there.

Some parts progressed linearly, executed with a meticulous process and a budget to match. Other parts were messier, unpredictable, following our guts and left to unfold over time.

But through it all, my ever-discerning eye still darted from bush to bush and tree to tree, uneasy, unsatisfied.

And unlike an interior, the garden was always changing. A garden is living, breathing. Some plants thrived, growing wildly, so much so that keeping them in check became its own job. Other plants would show up on death’s door for seemingly no reason at all. Like the lavenders. Especially the lavenders. (Oh, how I have a complicated relationship with lavender.)

We built spaces, then lived in those spaces. We searched for and found our voices in the design. How did we want this space to make us feel? Make others feel? Layouts came and shifted. A revolving door of plants, stones, chairs, pillows, and antique vessels.

And for awhile, there were parts of this project that felt like we would never get around to finishing. The stretch of yard that sat empty, dirt-filled… a holding place in limbo for most of those years. Budget evaporated and so much to do. Where to go from there, mentally and literally?

But somewhere along the way, cultivating and nurturing the outdoor spaces of our home became… the sacred way I spent my weekends.

Slowly I started to understand these spaces differently: how we actually moved through them, which places we lingered. Somewhere along the way, it stopped feeling like something we were working on, and started to feel like somewhere we were actually living our life in the best way.

So today I sit in the whitewashed Adirondack chair, the one I chose so carefully, purchased first as a set of two, then four, then six. I listen to the sound of a hummingbird feeding at a nearby salvia. I sip my iced coffee. And no longer am I analyzing, nitpicking flaws or wishing for something greater.

I am just here, enjoying the sun on my skin and the scent of rosemary in the air.

In the garden, where life unfolds.