As architects, the clients designed their own weekend house in Gallatin, NY which was completed in 2009. The two-story home includes large windows facing natural wetlands and a sloped meadow to the east, a north-facing screened porch, and wood shed with a roof-mounted photovoltaic array forming a carport to the west.

 

During the construction process, the client cleared a substantial amount of woodland, prepared the site with rough grading, laid bluestone plank paving for pathway to and around house, and planted a "conservation meadow mix". Following this work, the clients requested that Alison Duncan Design prepare a master plan strategy with options for layout of garden walls, hedges, planted paths, meadow treatments, and planting beds. This master plan was developed to provide site strategies that address circulation and frame views; it also made suggestions for plant species for various gardens around the property.

 

The landscape plan uses geometries for walls, hedges, and planting beds which respond to site geometries and is sensitive to the clean architectural lines and angles of the home. Some of the larger landscape gestures proposed include a large lavender berm on the approach to the house, a perennial garden outside a west-facing kitchen window, a "garden room" to the south of the house, complimenting the interior layout of living room, and a low woodland garden and foundation plantings to the north. To the east, mown paths were also proposed through a sloped meadow, seeded with native wildflowers.