Distinction Award for Outdoor Living Area (Design/Build)

Surrounds fashioned this landscape to reflect the clients’ love of their natural environment. The unselfconscious appearance of the landscaping belies its structural complexity. Four primary-use areas are connected by meandering walkways that cleverly incorporate the property’s changing elevations. Grade changes are subtle in some places but steeper and more dramatic in others. Starting at the house, stone steps wind down to the open-air grilling/dining patio. A few steps further down, a spa was installed by a patio made of huge, asymmetrical stone slabs; a mountainous fireplace stands on one side. A set of gently winding steps leads to the pool, and from there, low grass steps—neatly trimmed with bluestone cobbles and shouldered by raw, uncut rock—lead to an expansive lawn where kids can play.

Outstanding Features

• Walkways are naturally curvy and indirect like a hiking path might be.
• Constructed materials blend with unconstructed materials.
• Pavers and retaining walls abut raw, uncut boulders and shocks of plant material.
• A mountainous fireplace adjoins a simple waterfall that drops into a spa.

Surrounds Landscape Architecture + Construction
21580 Blackwood Court
Sterling, VA 20166
703-430-6001
surroundslandscaping.com