Fact Sheets

Kevin Cordt is the co-owner of Cordt Gardens, LLC., a Washington, DC-based landscaping company. He will serve as the garden designer behind This Old House's first project in the nation's capital, as the Emmy Award-winning show chronicles the renovation of a two-story circa 1879 Italianate brick row house located in the up-and-coming Shaw neighborhood.

This Old House will join forces with Mi Casa Inc., a local nonprofit housing organization, to tell this urban renewal story. Kevin will work with This Old House, in addition to project architect Genell V. Anderson of The AMAR Group, LLC and general contractor Mahyar "Mike" Mahvi, owner of Venus Construction & Remodeling Inc., to complete the overhaul of the Mi Casa Inc. property. When the project is finished, Mi Casa Inc. will sell the home at a below-market cost to a low to moderate income family.

For This Old House's project, Kevin and his team will transform a small, desolate city lot into an urban oasis with the help of natural wood fencing, curved flowerbeds, and evergreen plantings. In business for 10 years, Kevin was recommended to the This Old House production team by DC-based architect Rich Markus, who was confident in Kevin's ability to design urban gardens that make the most of small spaces and provide low maintenance solutions for the city dweller.

Kevin credits his love of gardening to his mother, a passionate gardener herself, and notes that even as a child his interest was evident, "As a child in Pennsylvania, I remember rescuing plants from a neighborhood woodland area that was about to be developed."

Gardening was not Kevin's only artistic pursuit, and in 1985 he graduated from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor with a degree in Music Performance. In addition to his work as a garden designer, Kevin has pursued his love of music professionally, going on nationwide tours and spending three years with the Air Force as a ceremonial bugle player.

After moving to the DC-area, Kevin was trained "in the field" by area landscape contractors and architects. In 1996, he created his own company, Cordt Gardens. Then, in 2001, Dan Barry joined the company as Kevin's business partner. Kevin creates the outdoor spaces and Dan and his crew implement Kevin's creative vision.

Originally from Kansas, Kevin lives and operates his business out of Washington, DC.