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More than Plants and Shrubs
By Laura Jean Whitcomb
 You only get one chance to make a first impression. Good thing the landscaping at a home on Little Sunapee Road in New London gives the impression that the owners planned: welcome to our family home.
“The house starts outside,” says Nic Hasey, owner of Country Design Group, a 15-year-old landscape architecture and construction firm in Bradford. Standing in front of the two-door garage, he points to an area of concrete pavers, placed next to a bluestone walkway that leads to the front door. “This is the entry. We’ve created ‘outdoor rooms.’ You park on the pavers, and are welcomed by the family waiting on the bluestone walkway. It’s an exterior entryway — an extension of the house.”
After the builders left in June 2007, Country Design Group was called to landscape two acres surrounding the waterfront home. “It was just a big pile of rocks near a birch tree,” says Hasey. After meeting with the clients, Hasey sketched designs over black-and-white photographs, playing with “what the client wants, but what the land allows. Before we started the excavation, we took a table and chairs with us to see where a patio would best sit. It’s important to let the land speak as we begin to shape.”
Although the owners were in Colorado, the design was a collaborative effort. “It’s a special place to them, the whole family gathers here,” says Hasey, who creates individual landscapes for each client. “They provided ideas to help me shape the exterior of their home.”
Pull into the bluestone hard pack driveway, and you’ll notice it has a refined edge — shrubbery and bark chips transition the eye from the driveway to a landscaped area then to the natural woods beyond. Drive a little further and you’ll see a Colorado blue spruce, a nod to their second home, on the right and a red barn and an old shed, original to the property, on the left. The wide driveway leads to the garage, and loops to the left for additional parking near the barn.
The plants are native to the area; high bush blueberry, witch hazel, vibernum, bunch berry and maple trees surrounded the home, so Hasey used these plants in the landscape. “As they begin to spread and move around, the line between what we did and what we are doing becomes obscure,” he says.
This is not a manicured landscape. The end result is natural; it sits well in the environment and the upkeep will be minimal for a family who wants to spend more time with each other than on yard work. But the attention to detail can be seen in features throughout the grounds: polymer-based dust between the stones to reduce weeds and tracking into the house, handpicked palettes of bluestone and custom carved stone stairs leading up to the house. Hasey, who has degrees in landscape operations and landscape architecture, is not only an architect but an artist — much of the granite he shaped and sculpted by hand.
“It’s all in the details,” he says. “Anyone can make a bluestone walk, but it is the base and preparation that important. The single most important thing to a house is its foundation,” he says. “We pay attention to things like setting stepping stones with a base so they don’t move and shift. Not only does it look nice, but it functions and lasts.”
The brick work, stone work and patios emerged from a yard of sand in November 2007.
You’d never know that the stone stairs leading from the waterfront area to the lower patio were new. Hasey and his team kept the ground cover, built the stairs, then put it back around the stones. The big rocks look like they were always there. The family can sit on large boulders, comfortably placed around an outdoor fire pit, and enjoy the natural environment.
“It’s important to me and my staff that we create the best work you can hire, a quality
craftsmanship that exceeds your expectations,” he says. “Our pride comes through in our work.”
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