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Whether it’s a peaceful retreat, a hotspot for entertaining or a fantasy made real, when landscape designer Cevan Forristt takes on a project, he doesn’t just strive to make a garden look nice. He aims to extend his clients’ homes into the outdoors and create for them a one-of-a-kind space that reflects their personalities, preferences and living styles.Â
“I don’t care what we do, I just care that when it’s done, you love it,” he said of prioritizing his clients’ visions.
To find out how to best design a client’s garden, he needs to get to know them. He starts by asking a lot of questions, and ruling out what they don’t want.
“I ask prospective clients, ‘Tell me your nightmare garden; everything you hate,’ to get that out of the way,” he said. He may then ask, “What did you like about your childhood? What color do you like?” or how they might imagine the garden of their dreams.
A landscape design, in his view, should be a reflection of the people who use it, and he sees his role as an advocate for bringing their vision to life.
“I’m fighting for you. I’m not fighting to get my way. I’m on your side. I kind of like to live vicariously through each client,” he said, adding that he sees all his jobs as collaborations.
An important part of his approach is to think of a garden or yard as a part of, not separate from, the rest of the home.
“In California, we have pretty good weather a lot of the time,” he said. “I try to bring the outside inside to make the garden like a room, an extension of the house.”
Dining al fresco, for example, is perfectly doable in the Bay Area most of the time, even in winter, especially with popular elements such as fire pits for warmth and ambiance.
When asked if he had any basic tips for those looking to integrate outdoor living space, he demurred, as he said each home has unique characteristics and each resident has their own needs.
“It depends totally on the house, what the windows look out to,” he said, noting that he likes to work with clients to evaluate a site’s weak points and features to highlight, including comfort accommodations such as adding pergolas or other shade elements if a yard gets too hot and sunny.
“It’s a process. Let me look into your house, how you live,” he said. He recommends not redesigning a garden right when you move into or remodel a house. Instead, live there for a bit to better understand how you’d truly best use the outdoor space.
Landscapes to me are stages. Something should happen in a garden, so people say, ‘there’s a there there.’
Cevan Forristt
Some clients may want a quiet, private oasis, while others may want room to party, in which case they’d want innovative seating arrangements and plenty of space to move.
When he takes on a client, he puts all of his focus into that project, one at a time.
“When I do a job, I live and breathe for that job. I do a psychological profile,” he said.
Of course, while his designs are all unique and site-specific, Forristt does put his own distinct style stamp on his work, whether it be through Asian influences or reclaimed, salvaged architectural elements arranged in striking ways.
Forristt is based in San Jose and grew up on the Peninsula, raised in Palo Alto and Menlo Park. He graduated from Menlo Atherton High School, did landscape work for Robert Noyce (the founder of Intel) and earned his horticulture degree from Foothill College in Los Altos Hills. Curious, restless and artistic, he couldn’t be contained by horticulture studies alone, which he found sometimes “dry,” he said.
“I would take acting classes and set design and ceramics. I took forever to graduate because I took so many electives,” he recalled with a laugh. But all those interests still come together in his work, and the stage design mindset stayed with him.
“Landscapes to me are stages. Something should happen in a garden, so people say, ‘there’s a there there,'” he said.
He also had an interest in archaeology, history and travel from a young age, recalling poring over encyclopedias and copies of National Geographic as a youth with a desire to see the world. Growing up in Menlo Park, his neighborhood was multicultural, and around fourth grade, he developed an interest in Japanese culture, partly thanks to his Japanese neighbors. When he was able, he started globe-trotting to far-flung locales, such as Borneo, Cambodia, Morocco and many others.
“I’ve been to Thailand 20 times. Burma 15 times … all these trips were kind of like an explosion in my head. You see so much culture,” he said. “I like to go where I don’t speak the language, where you have to start from scratch.”
From his travels, he’s brought home treasure, both physical – such as salvaged stone from old buildings in China he had shipped home – and inspirational, with elements from Asian design in particular often influencing his projects.
On his own San Jose property, which he sometimes opens up for garden tours, he has four ponds, antique doors, granite blocks reclaimed from a Nob Hill mansion and plenty of examples of his artistry, including collage vases made out of shards of historic pottery, collected from porcelain dealers he’s worked with in China (also viewable on his website).
When you think of gardens, flowers and plants naturally (no pun intended) come to mind. According to his website, Forristt has expertise in native, Mediterranean, tropical and drought-tolerant plantings. But because so much of his work is based on architectural elements and carefully planned installations, he said the design should be sound long before plants are even in place.
“My theory was to make really good bones and hardscapes. If everything died in the garden, your garden would still look good,” he said. If the basic bones are well designed, “the plants are almost like pubic hair … or a mustache,” he joked.
He’s garnered loyal clients and plenty of attention for his work over the years. Garden Design Magazine honored him with its Golden Trowel Award in 2006, and he’s also been featured in other publications including Sunset Magazine, National Geographic, The New York Times and more.
Forristt said he would get bored doing the same designs over and over, prefers plans to develop organically rather than via detailed blueprints, and relishes the chance to meet new people, explore new places and try out eclectic ideas.
“A lot of landscapers have plan A or plan B or C,” he said of more formulaic or cookie-cutter approaches. “Give me a new flavor.”
More information is available at forristt.com.
