In 1994 Joan Acker commissioned me to design gates and creative fence renovations. The brick posts, visible from the street, date from about 1950. The cream-colored gate and fencing shown here replace the original wood-work, which had, with the exception of the pickets, deteriorated beyond repair. The original pickets, shown re-used here, possess delightful incised drawings of various thistles, which I ordered painted lime-green. The design of this gate range is a freer... but still strongly-reminiscent... adaptation of the 1950 construction.

This year (2001), Joan, wished to develop the area behind the 1994 gate into a comfortable relaxing and writing place. This area is shady and has good breezes during the summer. However, this area fronts on a very busy one-way street, so she needed more privacy than the 1994 gate range could provide. Another problem was that, on the neighbor’s house wall were an electric meter and breaker panel... they were major visual intrusions for a garden room.... they were still in active use, so, whatever we did, they had to remain easily accessible.

For the street prospect, we elected to build a "lattice-trellis wall" with a "doorway" aligned with the gate. We wished to consider that the new work would not visually compete with the 1994 gate and fence, hence we chose a finer rhythm- a horizontal design which reflects the scale of the brickwork courses in the house and gateposts. The neighbor’s elevation was mollified by a second horizontally-patterned "lattice-trellis-wall" with a simple door concealing the meter. The lattices on this second "wall" had to be de-mountable so that the neighbor’s siding could be periodically maintained. Honeysuckle and clematis have been started near the lattices so this space will soon become a "green room".