Landscaping a Sloped Lot

By: Sam Martin, This Old House magazine (Page 1 of 5)

Photo: Jeff Von Hoene

Photo: Jeff Von Hoene and Burt Welleford

Because the Timeless Home's lot rises 30 feet in less than 60 yards from the street to the back of the house, landscape project manager Anne Wilfer had reinforced retaining walls built on both sides of the driveway to support the soil.

Illustration: John Burgoyne

Landscape designer Anne Wilfer's circular plan for this steeply sloped property keeps the stream natural as required but employs trees, shrubs, and retaining walls to hold the sloped banks. To walk from one side of the house to the other, a bluestone pathway connects the upper and lower decks with a series of steps. By planting Carolina hemlock, rhododendron, leucothoe (also known as doghobble), Florida anise, and inkberry—all native trees and shrubs—in groupings, she was able to create a low-maintenance yard with privacy.

Photo: Jeff Von Hoene and Burt Welleford

Carolina hemlocks, with large, 40-inch root balls, await planting. To shield the back of the house from neighbors, the 8-foot saplings were planted in a row, where they will grow to about 30 feet.

Photo: Jeff Von Hoene

Completed retaining wall.

Photo: Burt Welleford

A French drain system was installed along the base of the retaining walls.

Photo: Burt Welleford

An elastic mesh filter "sock" is placed over the 4-inch perforated pipe before laying it in place.

Photo: Burt Welleford

Brick veneer goes over the poured-concrete retaining wall for a more attractive finish.

Photo: Burt Welleford

A stonemason uses local Lithonia granite and portland cement mixed with stone dust — a recipe that hasn't changed in over 100 years.

Photo: Jeff Von Hoene

A 90-foot-long stone retaining wall runs across the back of the property.

Photo: Jeff Von Hoene

The first-floor deck is made with 100 percent plastic decking. Architect Jeremiah Eck chose copper to top the barrel-roofed screened-in porch.

Photo: Jeff Von Hoene

The basement level deck is made with a plastic composite material.

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How to Build a Retaining Wall

In this how-to video, This Old House landscape contractor Roger Cook uses manufactured block to create an attractive retaining wall

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When landscape project manager Anne Wilfer first set foot on the steep, wooded Atlanta lot of This Old House magazine's Timeless Home one rainy Sunday in October of 2001, as the house was nearing completion, she quickly got an idea of how challenging the job ahead of her would be.

“The place was a narrow mud slide,” she says. “Besides the fact that the land dipped into a streambed along one side of the property, there wasn't anything behind the house to keep an embankment from eventually sliding into the dining room.”

Immediately she knew the property would require several retaining walls, as well as hearty native plantings with substantial root systems to anchor the soil. Getting from one side of the house to the other would require stone steps built into the hillside, as well as steps added to the basement-level deck. “Basically, we were hired to landscape a big hill,” says Wilfer.

But because Atlanta sits in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, steep lots are nothing new for Wilfer and the Gainesville, Georgia, group she represents, The Jaeger Company. Many people are rejecting the long commutes and excessive traffic that come with a house in the flatter suburbs and choosing smaller, hillier properties in the older downtown neighborhoods.

But the convenience of proximity comes at a price: “Anytime you landscape a sloped lot, it's going to cost more,” says This Old House landscape contractor Roger Cook. “Moving earth means renting equipment, and in terms of cost per square foot, building walls is one of the most expensive things you can do.” At the Timeless Home (a joint project of TOH and the Masco Corporation), where Wilfer worked with crews to install three retaining walls, a stone pathway around the house, upper and lower decks, granite steps on one side of the house, and native, low-maintenance plantings with a drip irrigation system, the cost was roughly $70,000.