Atrium Escape

Mid-century modern homes in California were often designed for the Mediterranean climate. Atriums were built at the entrance or in the center of the home. Lee Ann Marienthal Gardens created this Orange County landscape with an emphasis on mid-century and Asian design. An appealing escape, the atrium features boulders, a pond with waterfall, a flagstone patio and pond surround, and shade-tolerant plants like Japanese maples. Marienthal’s team installed plants like star jasmine to hide the utilities, Coleonema pulchellum ‘Sunset Gold’, anemone ‘Honorine Jobert’, and Australian violet.

Postwar Pad in the Pacific Northwest

Not all mid-century homes were built on large, luxurious, expansive lots. Many were modest homes built in subdivisions, with limited square footage and on petite plots. Northwest Native Landscapes used a combination of hardscape, sharp angles, and plants with textural details for a small postwar home in Portland, Oregon. Soft plants contrast with the home’s angles and geometric shapes, keeping in mind seasonal interest. Colorful plants used include blue fescue grass (Festuca glauca) and conifers. The yard and porch provide intimate spaces, achieved with horizontal wood-slat fences that repeat the lines of the house.

Sustainable Eichler

The owners of an Eichler home in Northern California redesigned their landscape to incorporate sustainable features and add natives and drought-tolerant plants in cool shades like greens and blues to evoke a sense of calm, simplicity, and order. The plant selection emphasizes texture and includes a variety of ornamental and native grasses, olive trees, and drifts of Manzanita.

Designed by one of the owners of the design firm Building Lab and his landscape designer wife, the landscape features a sloping front yard that connects it with the surrounding hills. They also got back to the home’s roots by adding an entry courtyard patio surrounded by horizontal wood fencing. Among its sustainable features are a Toro drip irrigation system, salvaged fencing, and a permeable gravel driveway.

Oakland Eichler

While its good bones remained, a 2,200-square-foot Eichler home in Northern California’s Oakland Hills needed to be fully restored. Among other things, Beckner Contracting brought back the home’s trademark carport and entry atrium. Growing in the wall-hugging planters are agapanthus (right) and delicate shoots of bamboo against the entry wall. The home is one of just 48 Eichlers in the Sequoyah Hills tract, nicknamed “the lost Eichlers of the Oakland hills”.

Orange County Modern

A home in Laguna Niguel, California, designed by Southern California architect George Bissell received a revamp from Moss Yaw Design Studio, which includes geometric pavers, a low concrete wall, and planting beds with evenly spaced drought-tolerant plants.

Asian-Influenced Atrium

An Eichler home in San Jose features a large covered atrium created in an Asian style by MScape Design. The wood pergola provides year-round shelter, while decking is made of TimberTech in walnut. The design emphasizes horizontal lines and incorporates stone, water, and shoji-inspired screens.

Bridlemile Modern Revamp

A two-story mid-century modern home in the Bridlemile section of Portland, Oregon, received an outdoor redo by Shannon Keaveny Landscape Design that reflects its origins. Graced by mature trees and shrubs, Keaveny added colorful ornamentals like cordyline, heather, and mini nepeta.

Sarasota Industrial Modern

Sarasota, Florida, is a hotbed for mid-century modern architecture. This Modernist-inspired urban industrial features hardscape; Floridian palm trees; and lush, coastal foliage designed by Borden Landscape. Stager for the home was iStage Homes.

Boston Coolidge

Many mid-century homes are private in the front: they lack front porches and you can’t see what’s going on inside. The backs of the house are often floor-to-ceiling glass, open to the yard. Boston-based Flavin Architects updated a home by architect Robert Coolidge—a contemporary of the famous Modernist Walter Gropius. Viewed from the back, the home features a two-level yard, each with a private walled patio that offers intimacy and outdoor living.

Linear Beauty

A modern home in Portland, Oregon, built by Don Tankersley & Co. and designed by Situ Architecture, emphasizes natural materials and a linear design. Planting design, by Michael Schultz Landscape Design, is clean and Asian influenced with bonsais in wide, low pots. Accent illumination is by Oregon Outdoor Lighting.

Rear Window

Another home with lots of windows in the back was designed by San Francisco architect David Henig. The deck screen is ipe wood finished with marine-grade teak oil. That hanging light fixture, which is stunning viewed indoors or from the backyard, is from the Moooi Raimond collection.

Southern California Eichler

Floating pavers in a sea of Mexican river rock lead to the entry of an Eichler home in Southern California. Created by Grounded, the design is modern, focusing on bold shapes, repetition, minimalism, and a deep connection between architecture and the landscape.

Kansas City Cool

Mid-century modern homes are everywhere, including Kansas City, Missouri. Clockwork designed a carpet of healthy green grass rimmed by a neat border of Mexican river rock that hugs the home’s concrete pad.

Spectacular Remodel

Webber + Studio, Architects breathed new life into a mid-century modern in Austin. Architect David Webber added cedar benches that match the home’s exposed wood. The original concrete and aggregate driveway and path were reused as saw-cut pavers for a new walkway.

California Cantilever

You’ll find numerous mid-century modern custom-designed homes and subdivisions in Southern California’s San Fernando Valley. Jeremy Taylor Landscapes used Brazilian ipe for a Studio City pool deck. The bench is made of poured-in-placed concrete. Beneath the cantilevered patio cover is a rescued fireplace: an original near-mint 1960s Majestic rescued curbside at remodel.

The colorful plant palette includes aeonium ‘Blushing Beauty’, yellow New Zealand flax, orange kangaroo paw, and blue chalk sticks senecio.

Concrete Block Wall

A simple mid-century tract home was spruced up by Minnesota’s Ground One with a decorative concrete block wall, reminiscent of the beautifully patterned designs from the 1950s and 1960s.

Killingsworth Design

Huetll Landscape Architecture updated the landscape of an Edward Killingsworth-designed house in Northern California. Mediterranean and native shrubs, perennials, and ornamental grasses work with the surrounding landscape, while hardscape reflects the home’s modern lines.

High Impact

Planted on the terraced slope of a house near San Francisco are easy-care dianella “Little Rev’ and nassella tenuissima. Designed by Envison Landscape Studio, beds or “boxes” are each planted with one type of dramatic plant en masse for visual impact.

Geometric Layout

Once neglected and overrun by weeds, the front yard of a mid-century home in Northern California received a smart makeover by Dig Your Garden Landscape Design that employs a geometric design. Both hardscape and softscape elements are evenly spaced; the geometric layout echoes the lines of the home.

Mid-Century Meadow

A generous setback allows for a meadow of ornamental grasses like Big Muhly and Mexican feather grass. Designed by Robert Leeper Landscapes of Austin, the grasses and other plants are deer resistant.

PS: They Love You

Thousands of miles away, The Small Garden of Brisbane, Australia, designed a Palm Springs-inspired courtyard garden that features slat-horizontal and vertical fencing, a pergola, and architectural succulents like agave attenuata.

Clean and Simple

Seed Studio likes to keep it clean and simple. Pea gravel paves the fire pit terrace. Drought-tolerant plants include low-growing dymonida and senecio, which are both grayish green.

Just Add Color

Exactly Designs livened up a mid-century house near Detroit with orange exterior trim, motel-style chairs, and vivid green grass. Low-growing shrubs in house-hugging beds don’t block the view from the inside. Designer Elin Walters added fun architectural details like metal roofline rods, rectangular concrete planters, and modern address numbers.

Architectural Details

Extra-large fiberglass pots by International Art Properties are set on pea gravel against a horizontal wood-slat fence at a mid-century modern house in Mill Valley, California. Designed by Bradanini & Associates Landscape Architecture, the design features horsetail (Equisetum hyemale), which can be invasive if not contained.

Santa Cruz Mid Mod

Pea gravel is a popular hardscape material for contemporary and mid-century modern updates. It’s drought tolerant, permeable, inexpensive, and colors complement natural materials used on the homes’ exteriors. Designed by Verdant Landscape Architecture of Santa Cruz, California, this backyard reflects the home’s simplicity.