AVON LAKE

Sited on Lake Erie’s highest bluffs, this property presents a series of thoughtfully articulated spaces exploring the possibilities of motion in the house and landscape relationship. At the entry, a gate under an allée of pleached pears leads into a motor court laid with sandstone and granite cobbles. Through an iron gate and arbor separating the motor court from the side garden, a specimen Chinese Dogwood terminates the path’s axis, subtly directing visitors through the intimate kitchen garden with its espaliered fruit trees and tumbled stone paving to a first view of the lake framed by an arbor covered with climbing roses and clematis. A series of terraces provides seclusion and drama: concealing a glass mosaic spa and fountain at the basement bistro level and revealing an unimpeded lake view from a dining terrace perched just above a glass mosaic pool. With its sweeping views of the lake and Cleveland skyline, the promontory pool terrace is the culmination of a richly detailed outdoor sequence.