McClure-Baron Home

Recent Street View

Before (1994)

Detail from sidewalk

Front Yard and Entrance Approach, McClure-Baron home, Eugene, Oregon

A house with "all the personality of a 60's double-wide", a lone wood-choked arbor vitae at each house corner, a small weedy lawn, and a vast concrete driveway serving twin-function as parking lot and front door approach were Eve and Rob’s homecoming view.

The gateway, pergola, and wood ornamental screens demonstrate that even a simple house can provide positive cues for a design... The pitch of the roof, the bevel of siding, the rhythm of siding, the detail of gutters... things with which to work can add-up quickly. To work with the house- embrace what characteristics it has- more-easily lead to distinctive and strong overall effects. On these garden structures, the choices of what to paint/what to leave natural derive as much from what is practical to paint/maintain as much as they derive from aesthetic consideration.

The gateway and pergola, while coordinating with the house, emphatically anchor the walkway realm from near the street to the front door, including inside the carport. The curved walkway, round lawns, and smooth river boulder forms contrast dramatically with the straight and angular lines of the house and structures. Some of the shrubs are chosen and kept to echo rounded shapes. Throughout the yard, variety of textures, colors, and highlights come into play- most notably in the walkway and lawn-ring brickwork, the lamppost and its details, and the array of flowers, groundcover, shrubs and trees (chosen more for their structure and texture than for their blossoming characteristics). The overall richness, color, and spatiality of this work counterbalance the blank drive and make it possible to forget all the concrete for a time.

Tile and Brick walk	Recent View


Entrance pergola and Screens, 1995	Recent pergola view

Walk	Aerial

Lamp post	Completed front yard