New Orleans Style in Sarasota, Florida

By Robert Davie

The entrance to the gardens is built off the right front corner of the house. The columns are built of antique bricks collected from New Orleans, and the lanterns are gas powered. The plants flanking the entrance include heavenly bamboo and caladiums. Photos courtesy of Robert Davie & Associates Landscaping

Robert Davie & Associates Landscaping creates a New Orleans backyard, incorporating the homeowner's collection of sugar kettles, wrought iron gates and antique bricks. With a 1-acre canvas, this home features a pool, pool house and a spa all integrated with Southern-style landscaping. Integrating all the client wanted was the challenge Robert Davie & Associates Landscape faced when they undertook this Sarasota, Florida project. With more than an acre of backyard to work with, there was also a lot to be designed and constructed.

The support columns and the back wall of the outdoor fireplace was built using antique bricks. The owners found an old piece of heavy wood, and built it into the brick wall as a mantel. The privacy wall is behind the right entry column and extends the length of the complex, using Firespike and Bougainvillea plants to add color. The privacy wall includes alcoves for an antique-like concrete bench, and planters that feature an ironwork backdrop and wrought iron gates.

This nighttime shot shows the pool and spa area from the pool-house point of view. The spa is flanked on both sides by Golden dewdrop on the outer wall. Purple flowers and golden berries hang over the wall-top as well. Antique urns flank the entry steps leading to the spa, with asparagus ferns cascading over their sides.

Swimming Pool

Starting with the pool, which was the most important feature of the complex, we centered it on the large family window. We gave them a ''swim out'' where a person could lie on a shelf in just a few inches of water. It also created more water space and made an inviting entry to the pool from all angles of the surrounding complex. We moved the pool well away from the house, because with all that available space in the back, we felt obliged to take advantage of it.

In the spa area, collected antique wrought iron panels act as windows. The wall is a radius and meant to provide privacy from the neighbors. It is concrete block construction covered with stucco, and a running cap of antique brick finishes the wall and the spa tops.

Outdoor Space

We had a special design task ahead of us with the outdoor fireplace. So many outdoor fireplaces look like they were cut out of the house and then set outside. Our design was to take the room along with the fireplace. There was a pitched roof, which the owners choose to make out of copper, and make it a place to utilize their collection of antique bricks for the support columns and a back wall, which included the fireplace. This served to block the view of the neighbor's carport. The owners found an old piece of heavy wood, and built it into the brick wall as a mantel.

The entry to the complex needed to accomplish several things. It had to bring people into the backyard, but also needed to complement the home's architecture, which was a 30-year-old brick ranch. The large entry gates, which were part of the homeowner's collection, greet guests as they arrive down a small brick pathway off the main drive. Large brick columns with gas lanterns on each side supported the magnolia gates. The right elevation wall of the house served as a backdrop for Firespike and Bougainvillea plants. The privacy wall started behind the right entry column and extended the length of the complex, almost to the lake in back. It had alcoves for an antique-like concrete bench, planters that feature the collection of ironwork as a backdrop and wrought iron gates that flanked the outdoor fireplace.

To the left, the outdoor fireplace structure features a copper sloped roof. In the center, the homeowner's antique sugar kettle was installed as a centerpiece of the landscape between the fireplace and the house, with gardenias, liriope, lantana and indian hawthorne planted around it. A medium size black olive tree shades the area.

A large ceramic pot was also placed just inside the entry gates, water bubbling over its sides and collecting in the gravel below. A large radius wall pushes out behind the spa, picking up on a pattern reflected in other parts of the project. The large half-radius theme was utilized in the spa wall, the entry shelf to the pool and the brick inserts in the concrete that border the front of the fireplace.

More wrought-iron panels were inserted in the spa walls, creating windows to the outside garden, allowing privacy to those in the spa, but just a glimpse of the foliage beyond. Golden dewdrop is planted on the outside wall, with small purple flowers and golden berries to hang over the wall top. Antique urns flank the entry steps leading up the spa, with asparagus ferns cascading over their sides.

Natural sabal palms and a Florida cypress tree, as well as large old long-leaf pines complete the tree line behind the pool and grass area. In the foreground, a pot of annuals features red salvia and Johnny jump-ups.

The pool house was built at the opposite end of the pool. The pool house features a simple screened-in porch. Large brick planters were built in a grid in front of the pool house. There is a separation from the pool and a garden-like feel, their branches creating a canopy overhead. They include crepe myrtles, a small blooming tree practically synonymous with New Orleans. Ferns flow over the sides to create that Southern charm. Double rows of brick top the planter's edge and are just the right height for guests to sit.

Angles trumpets grow behind the garden gates and bloom several times throughout the year. Allemandes provide yellow blooms most of the summer under the family room windows and an arbor has a pandora vine winding up its posts.

Peace lilies grow underneath in the shade it provides. Firespike invite humming birds and butterflies in late summer through the beginning of the new year. And a large black olive tree shades a garden between the house and the outdoor fireplace. Gardenias grow underneath the olive tree, their summer blossoms assuring you that you are indeed in New Orleans style.