NISHIEL PATEL

Merz House Garden

Brooklyn, NY

The Merz House garden is a retreat for a young family newly inhabiting this concrete-clad jewel box home designed by architects Joseph and Mary Merz in the late modernist era in Brooklyn Heights on a rare double-wide lot.The garden's reimagining was designed to reorient the home and the exterior deck towards a central verdant courtyard, unlocking new views and connections between the two. The new design updates the rear deck with an outdoor living and dining area and situates new programs such as fire pit, cedar hot tub, and cold plunge nestled amongst new trees and planting in the reopened center. The new courtyard features a central patio made up of square basalt cobbles, selected to evoke the repeating concept of the square found in the house’s design. The scattered paver pathways have an ephemeral quality through the courtyard, intentionally breaking the rigidity of the grid.

The planting design reinforces the idea of reorientation to the center. Denser and darker trees and shrubs, such as Hollywood Junipers and Winterberry Holly, line the perimeter of the space and define the more open center. Lower shrubs, grasses and perennials, such as Autumn Moor Grass, Prairie Dropseed, Foxgloves, Anemones, Actaea, Echinacea, and Pee Wee Hydrangea Pee amongst other dappled sun-loving selections, are paired with the open form of Multi-stem Grey Birches, guaranteeing continuous views from the deck to the home.

Photo: Adrian Gaut

Completed in 2023
Architecture by Starling Architecture
Installed by Euro Art Construction

Overhead view of the courtyard deck with a cedar hot tub and cold plunge set among scattered basalt cobbles and dappled, sun-loving planting

Concrete-block facade of the Merz House draped in Boston ivy above a Hollywood juniper, designed by architects Joseph and Mary Merz in the late modernist era in Brooklyn Heights

Shaded lounge beneath a blackened pergola with a dark sofa, framed by limelight hydrangea with the cedar hot tub in the foreground

Detail of scattered square basalt cobbles dissolving from a tight grid into the planting, echoing the home's square motif

Overhead view of two blond-wood lounge chairs on square basalt cobbles that scatter loose into the planting, echoing the home's square motif

Installation in progress with masons setting square basalt cobbles to string lines over a gravel base

Photo by Nishiel Patel

Autumn view of the scattered basalt cobble paving dissolving from its grid, strewn with golden fallen leaves

Photo by Nishiel Patel

Blond-wood lounge chairs around a steel fire pit on basalt cobbles, nestled among hydrangea and juniper beneath a blackened pergola

Installation in progress with a crew excavating the courtyard before the ivy-clad Merz House and its cedar pergola

Rear brick facade of a Bedford Stuyvesant brownstone with a reflective perforated metal stair rising above a frothy, endless garden and a white dog on the limestone path

Overhead view of the intergenerational garden with family and friends gathered along winding limestone paths and a dog on the green below the metal stair

Generation House

Brooklyn, NY

A garden for intergenerational living (shared by a designer / architect and many families)in the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. This garden was designed to be a a backbone for constant change and stewardship by the owners over time. A garden meant to feel endless with spaces to discover. The light of a frothy palette (anemone, fennel, meadow rue, hibiscus, rose, with shade tolerant sedges and bugloss) dances on reflective metal. The serrated edges of the limestone pavers disappear over time.

Photo: Mary Kang & Michael Vahrenwald

Completed in 2021
Architecture by soft-firm

Limestone paver path with serrated edges winding through lush, shade-tolerant planting toward a reflective metal fence in Brooklyn

Frothy palette of pink anemone, fennel, and climbing hydrangea spilling over a reflective corrugated metal fence

Creeping groundcover spreading across serrated limestone pavers beneath a reflective perforated metal stair

Frothy border of white hydrangea, pink anemone, and fennel against a reflective corrugated metal fence beneath a fig tree

Dappled light falling across serrated-edge limestone pavers softened by encroaching bugloss and shade-tolerant sedges

Installation in progress with a galvanized stair, freshly laid limestone paving, and staged nursery pots behind the brick brownstone

Overhead installation shot of the perforated metal stair with limestone paving mid-lay and construction materials staged across the Bedford Stuyvesant yard

Young, newly planted garden along a limestone path beside a reflective corrugated metal fence with wire chairs and a table

Gaura and dichondra overflowing in a concrete planter in a Brooklyn brownstone backyard

South Slope Garden

Brooklyn, NY

A brownstone garden for a textile designer’s family and tenants in Park Slope. The checkerboard paving, made of alternating thermaled bluestone and limestone, was selected to achieve a playful pattern while maintaining order and manageability. Specimen and evergreen planting is selected to maintain fanciful seasonal interest, even in the depths of winter, and a visual tableau from the deck above. Year round programming for dining, cooking, reading, and sitting by a fire was accommodated within distinct held spaces.

Photo: Reed Young

Completed in 2023
Installed by Brooklyn Grange

Checkerboard bluestone paving juxtaposed with a weeping blue cedar in a Brooklyn brownstone backyard

Spring flowering annuals blossoming against a painted brick backdrop

A bumblebee on a white coneflower in a vibrant backyard landscape

Deck bistro set against a slatted wood screen with black wire chairs, a Hay table, a cut-flower bouquet, and a concrete planter with trailing dichondra in a Brooklyn brownstone landscape

Meadow-style planting bed with coneflowers, scabiosa, and grasses beneath a weeping blue cedar and raised deck in a Brooklyn landscape garden

Delicate pink scabiosa and white gaura on wiry stems against a dark blue planter

Cut-leaf elderberry foliage arching over a slatted wood fence beside a potted plant on the deck in a Brooklyn backyard landscape

Alfresco table on checkerboard bluestone paving with crusty bread, apricots, and olives, edged by lush green shade planting in a New York landscape garden

Olive-green slatted metal bench with a linen cushion surrounded by coneflowers, sea holly, and grasses on checkerboard paving

Bluestone path flanked by limelight hydrangeas and burgundy sanguisorba leading to the dining table and a red mesh chair

Installation in progress with nursery pots and flats of plants including black elderberry and herbs staged on the checkerboard paving before planting

Wider installation shot of the whole Brooklyn backyard mid-planting with dozens of potted plants laid out on a drop cloth beneath a mature tree