Making an Entrance Grand

With deft design, a Great Falls entrance goes from generic to grand.

Photos by Erin Bogan of McHale Landscape Design

THE PROBLEM: No parking; no sense of arrival
When visitors drove in, the only place to park was in front of the garage, blocking the owners’ cars.

THE SOLUTION:A clearly marked entrance
Hand chiseled stone piers along with appealing landscape plantings decisively demarcate the entrance to the property, engendering a sense of arrival.

The entrance to a house makes an impression on anyone who comes to the door. Often ignored is how the arrival experience feels to those who use the entrance day in and day out.

Emotional Impact

The experience of arrival “can really dictate one’s emotions,” says senior landscape architect Anthony Cusat of McHale Landscape Design Inc. A spacious, functional, and attractive entrance can have a positive effect on mood, engendering a sense of satisfaction and quiet pride. An extremely cramped, confusing or cluttered entrance sends out negative vibes. Worse, say feng shui practitioners, an inauspicious entrance invites misfortune.

Great Falls resident Shelley Digiammarino says her entrance used to be irritating. “I had no parking—it’s a long narrow drive. Babysitters would run into the lamppost.”

THE PROBLEM (inset): An unwelcoming entryway. Before the renovation, the front door seemed to recede in a sea of brick and encroaching shrubbery. “My husband said ‘I can’t believe you’re going to tear down the portico to make it just a foot wider on either side,’” remembers Digiammarino, who persisted.

THE SOLUTION: A gracious portico. “I enjoy creating large spaces for warm greetings and long goodbyes,” says Cusat. A spacious new portico accommodates people comfortably. Elegant and welcoming, flagstone steps and a roomy landing are a handsome contrast to the brick of the house.

Identifying the Irritants

Digiammarino consulted Cusat who began the design of the entrance by identifying problem areas. In addition to a lack of parking space, Cusat found that it was impossible to tell just where the Digiammarino property began. Their pipe stem lot had ingress-egress over a neighbor’s lot, and there was no sense of arrival.

Guest parking and a welcoming walkway. A flagstone threshold in the asphalt announces arrival and indicates parking spaces on either side of the driveway. A flagstone arrival court accesses the walk that, says Cusat, “rolls out like a carpet.”

The entrance also suffered from comparison with the backyard, which Cusat describes as, “one of the most complete, awe inspiring backyard landscapes a person could dream of (with) pool, spa, waterfall, outdoor kitchen, fire pit, countless gathering spaces and exquisite planting designs.” The entrance “fell short of depicting this same allure,” says Cusat.

While the front yard landscape had curb appeal, “it had no identifying character,” says Cusat. “The space lacked a sense of personality and left nothing to the imagination.”

A Practical Design with Personality

He then set goals: to create a functional entrance with good circulation, to add landscaping that “softens as well as compliments the architecture,” and most important, to “bring in the personality of the client.”

“McHale looks at how all of these details come together,” says Digiammarino, adding she is delighted with her new entrance. “I wanted things to be maintenance free, but have personality,” she says. “They listened. Nothing is cookie cutter.”

And, she says, it’s not just about going out and coming in. “Looking at it from inside,” she says, “I face the features. I don’t think people realize how much pleasure your yard can bring you.”

—Carole Ottesen