An award-winning hardscape for a stately home in a historic neighborhood in Minneapolis helped solve several landscaping challenges unique to this celebrated property.

Built by a Cream of Wheat company co-founder in 1902, the home is along a Minneapolis street near Lake of the Isles where many executives of the cereal company had constructed their homes in the previous century. Locals have nicknamed the street "Cream of Wheat Row" in honor of the stately old mansions.

This home had an original, poured concrete driveway and portico that were meant for horse and buggy. Modern vehicles could not easily pass through the portico over the crumbling concrete surface because of a limestone slab step that was used originally for people disembarking from horses and carriages. In addition, the hardscape design needed to reflect the home's character while enhancing vehicle and pedestrian accessibility. Because the home was on a city lot, space constraints also created challenges.

 

"You could barely tell that the driveway was concrete as it was broken down from over a century of Minnesota winters," says Kelly O'Donahue, a landscape designer with Villa Landscapes of St. Paul, Minn. "Demolition was a challenge due to the space constraints as well as the stone step. We had to excavate down nine inches to remove what remained of the concrete and curbing so as not to cause more problems. With the stone step being difficult if not impossible to remove, we ended up lifting the elevation of the new driveway surface so you could not see the step."

For the driveway and sidewalks, O'Donahue selected Willow Creek????EUR??,,?>>???? Paving Stones' Cobblestone pavers for their old-world, classic appearance. In addition, the unique properties and benefits of Willow Creek's interlocking concrete pavers make them ideal for environments with frequent freeze-thaw cycles like in Minnesota.

The homeowner also wanted the paver surfaces to complement the home's exterior limestone, cream-colored stucco, reddish-orange porch tile and blue-gray window trim. O'Donahue carefully combined three colors in the Cobblestone paver family to create a palette that accentuates the colors of the home.

Because the slope along the driveway had been grass-covered, drainage problems often created slippery spots on both the sidewalk and driveway in the winter. To transition the slope along the driveway, O'Donahue chose the VERSA-LOK Harmony retaining wall system, which combines Standard and Cobble wall units.

The Weathered????EUR??,,?>>???? texture was chosen for its historic, hand-hewn appearance to complement the original limestone on the home's exterior, and Charcoal Blend color was selected to coordinate with colors in the paver surface. Changing the pitch of the sidewalk and installing an underground drain pipe also helped alleviate the drainage issues.

O'Donahue and Willow Creek Paving Stones, received recognition for her landscape and hardscape design of the project at the 2019 Hardscape North America Awards, produced by the Interlocking Concrete Pavement Institute (ICPI), under the vintage installation category. HNA awards honor top residential and commercial hardscaping designs for walkways, patios, pool decks, outdoor kitchens and living spaces, and driveways as well as commercial plazas and streets.

"The homeowner is very pleased with the project features, especially the flow of the driveway, the choice of colors and the intersectional design in the walkways," said O'Donahue. "Our design philosophy is to meet the homeowner's needs and desires, and to reflect the home's personality and its relationship to the outdoor environment."

As seen in LASN magazine, February 2020.