PROJECTS
Elegance in the Garden
Landscape Design
Luxurious Pool Landscape
Landscape Design, Pools
Majestic Westchester – Hudson River Views
Landscape Design, Pools
Elegance and Views in a Hudson Valley Hilltop
Landscape Design, Pools
A Contemporary & Artful Landscape
Landscape Design
Arts & Crafts Landscape Haven
Landscape Design
A Garden Designed for Celebrations
Landscape Design
Hudson Valley Idyll
Landscape Design, Pools
Outdoor Living in a Glorious Landscape
Landscape Design, Pools
Garden & Pool Getaway
Landscape Design, Pools
OUR TEAM
PRESS
Gardentopia by Jan Johnsen
By Jan Johnsen
Any backyard has the potential to refresh and inspire if you know what to do. Jan Johnsen’s new book, Gardentopia: Design Basics for Creating Beautiful Outdoor Spaces, will delight all garden lovers with over 130 lushly illustrated landscape design and planting suggestions.
Published by W.W. Norton
The Spirit of Stone by Jan Johnsen
By Jan Johnsen
In The Spirit of Stone, award-winning designer Jan Johnsen presents a richly photographed, authoritative guide to creative and practical uses for stone in the landscape: steps, paths, garden walls, dry streams, benches, rock gardens, driveways and more. The Spirit of Stone is an essential idea book and how-to for designers, stonemasons, builders, homeowners and DIYers.
Published by St. Lynn’s Press
Heaven is a Garden by Jan Johnsen
By Jan Johnsen
Why do some gardens make us feel so wonderful, relaxed and refreshed? Using ideas based on ancient and modern practices, this book shows how you can uplift yourself and others in a serene setting designed for “unplugging” and relaxing. Whether you are intending to create a lovely garden or just thinking about a future outdoor haven, Heaven is a Garden will help you see your backyard in a whole new light and reawaken an awareness of the wonders of Nature. “Simplicity, Sanctuary and Delight” is the guideline that noted landscape designer Jan Johnsen recommends in this elegantly written book.
Published by St. Lynn’s Press
Horticulture Magazine
By Jan Johnsen
Key considerations for designing a stone walkway that suits you garden’s style, climate and functions.
Garden Design Magazine
How Jan Johnsen blends ancient and modern ways to create gardens that simply make you feel good.
APLD Merit Award
Project Title : Riverhouse
Project Location : Briarcliff Manor, NY
2014 Award: The site is a large, steeply sloped, partially wooded, west-facing property. It is characterized by large rock outcrops and the topsoil layer is fairly thin. The site faces the Hudson River. Our inspiration for the property was to create a feeling similar to that of the Hudson River School painting style: refined yet naturalistic. The design creates an impressive yet harmonious setting that enhances the spectacular nature of the site. Our environmental objective was to minimize storm runoff, retain as much of the native rock outcrops as possible and use plants suitable for slope conditions.
LoHud.com Journal News
Written by DEBRA KEISER
For The Journal News/LoHud.com – June 28, 2013
Just like people, pools, too, have personality – if they’re lucky. Landscape designer Jan Johnsen, who studied and worked in Japan and Hawaii, has designed many over the last 40 years, and she believes every one of them has its own persona.
“There is an innate personality to each site – something I call, ‘the power of place.’ It refers to the overall appearance and feeling of a place,” she says. “My approach is to marry the site to the design so it makes sense on a visceral level.”
Of course, Johnsen’s plans also take into account the owner’s vision and personal tastes, but the site’s personality traits have to be considered.
“I look at the view, the native trees and shrubs, the geology, the orientation, the sun/ shade patterns and more,” she says. For instance, if the site has tall mature trees, you don’t clear cut; you blend them into the design. Working in concert with the site means that the finished layout will be more serene, she says. “I strive to create the feeling of calm.”
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Westchester Home
Written by Tovah Martin
Westchester Home – 2012
A perilous slope left this Chappaqua property virtually inaccessible before a savvy landscape designer turned dysfunctional into dramatic.
Most people see a slope and assume that it’s downhill all the way. But not Jan Johnsen. She sees slopes as totally upbeat.
The fact that grass steps are Jan Johnsen’s signature is telling. It says something about a landscape architect who strives to soften every element of a garden-cushioning access to the upwardly mobile aspects of a landscape. But the fact that Johnsen focuses on steps also implies that she’s dedicated to bringing every space in a yard into the dialogue. Show Johnsen a property with a breakneck hill that would give Jack and Jill the jitters, and she’ll see a way to utilize every square foot of space without worrying about taking a tumble. That’s exactly what she’s been doing for 18 years, working for a family in Chappaqua who came to her with the hill from hell. Not only did she transform it into herbaceous heaven, but she harnessed the uppermost areas to turn them into viewing platforms and utilized all the acreage in between.
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914 INC.
Born with a Green Thumb – Jan Johnsen
Written by NLC
914INC Magazine – 2011
When she was in the third grade, Jan Johnsen planted corn seeds on the windowsill of her family’s New York apartment. She soon branched out to the fire escape, where pots of flowers and vegetables thrived. At 16, she won first prize in the Manhattan borough-wide science fair with an experiment on how sound affects the growth of plants. “My teacher thought it was a stupid idea,” she says, “and that made me want to do it more. I just intuitively knew there was a connection.” Since then, scientists have learned that the high-frequency vibrations of birdsong open up the pores on plant leaves so that they absorb more air and nutrients.
After 15 years of working for other firms, Johnsen opened her own landscape company in 1986 with just $3,000. “I bought a used computer from the PennySaver and started out in a one-room office I rented from a tree company.”
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Home & Design
Written by Bill Cary
Home & Design (The Journal News) – Summer 2006
“People say pools are only for four months of the year in this climate, but what a great four months it is.” – Jan Johnsen
photo: Mark Vergari
As you make your way down along the grassy path from the 1930s hilltop house on Lounsbury Road in Croton-on-Hudson to the secluded pool area that sits just below the apple orchard, a hint of sun warms the back of your neck just before you settle into one of the large wooden chairs at the edge of the pool.
The ornamental grasses behind you sway gently as a river breeze catches the seed heads, sending them bobbing in the brightening morning light. The shadow of the great oak that stands between you and the Hudson begins to stretch out across the hillside and the gauzy morning haze over the river seems to be lifting, bringing with it the promise of another great day poolside.
“When people put in a pool, their entire use of their property changes,” says landscape designer Jan Johnsen, the designer who transformed this rocky ledge into an oasis for a Croton family of four. “You’ll be out here in the early morning and then later in the evening.”
“Your garden changes, too,” says Johnsen, who also lives in Croton. “It becomes much more immediate, much more intimate – you’re living inside your garden now.”
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