Creating a new home from scratch in Cambridge is not an easy endeavor, especially in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in the City. When a prominent street corner on Reservoir Hill came on the market, our clients saw an opportunity to build the home of their dreams—one that would carve a private oasis from the surrounding urban context and establish a place for garden-focused living for their multi-generational family to enjoy for decades to come. After a several-year-long design, permitting and construction process, an elegant shingle-style home and garden now anchor the sun drenched south-facing lot.

Beautifully crafted granite and fieldstone retaining walls elevate the structure a few feet above the streetscape, and heavily textured masses of evergreen and deciduous trees and shrubs create year-round privacy for the home. Swaths of ornamental grasses and perennials soften edges and a memorable sense of place is born. Natural cleft bluestone walkways and terraces become the true circulatory system of the garden, linking important indoor and outdoor spaces seamlessly to the family’s busy lifestyle. To the south, a pair of exquisite stone piers topped by a custom bronze archway smothered by new dawn climbing roses builds a soothing visual focal point from inside the gracious home. Reclaimed granite steps with wide planting joints replete with catmint and thyme create an iconic gateway from the sidewalk to the garden.

To the west, the home’s primary walkway leads to a trellised entrance covered in roses and clematis. A reclaimed granite address post is carved with the number 26—the property’s address. Eroding bluestone paths flow from public to private spaces, and a new heated drive is paved with heavily textured concrete pavers. Forged iron fencing envelopes the property, and luxurious new plantings create scale, shade, and enclosure. The south terrace and activity lawn are positioned to embrace multi-seasonal outdoor living, and lovely teak planters are filled with seasonal decor to help create a lovely atmosphere.

Incredible slabs of heavily textured reclaimed granite are used to construct vegetated, egress-compliant window-wells for the basement, and a dramatically textured shade garden weaves perennials with strong foliage patterns to enhance the views from inside-out. Long-blooming colonies of hydrangea, azalea, itea, inkberry and rhododendron embellish inward-focused areas of the garden, and the family’s connection to their land is thoroughly embedded in their new lifestyle at the Reservoir Street Garden.