Like so many wonderful things in life, the inspiration for this home project began with a trip to Napa’s wine country. Eight years ago, Frontenac resident Julie Hornsby traveled to California with her family to celebrate her daughter’s birthday. One picturesque day, seated beneath a pergola with the perfumed air of blooming wisteria wafting around her, Hornsby decided that she would re-create a similar setting back at home, one with a tranquil yet family-friendly atmosphere.
As she’d done many times over the years, she called Kim Kelce and Nancy Pedley, of Kelce & Pedley, to plan the landscape renovation, beginning with the design of a cypress pergola commissioned from Nancy’s husband, landscape architect Bill Pedley. The pergola was such a hit—with Hornsby’s friends, children, and grandchildren—that she eventually decided to expand the scope of the backyard work to encompass a larger space in which to entertain, and a contemporary pool design with a tanning ledge to replace an old brick-framed pool.
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With Hornsby’s children grown and visiting grandchildren always under an adult’s watchful eye, the team decided to remove the safety fence that had long separated the pool from the rest of the backyard.
“We decided to open up the yard and integrate the two spaces,” says Pedley.
But once the yard was dug up and the concrete was poured for the new terrace off the house, the company that had been hired to makeover the pool suddenly declared bankruptcy, leaving the homeowner and designers in a muddle. For months, Hornsby lived with soil and debris everywhere, says Pedley, until the team could hire Pool Tron to help save the project. By erecting a plastic tent around the structure, Pool Tron employees were able to work through the winter months to complete the project by spring.
Meanwhile, Kelce and Pedley grappled with additional challenges borne of the original contractor’s work. “We didn’t want to jackhammer the concrete that had already been poured. That would have been incredibly expensive,” says Pedley. But they did need to ensure that the terrace and pool deck were level. They hired Atelier Vals, a Louisville-based company that specializes in custom concrete designs, to cast custom pavers for the pool copings that would create a seamless transition from one hardscape area to the next. Full Care Landscaping was retained to remove the buildup of water between the pool deck and pergola by regrading the area and installing a drainage pipe to allow water to flow downhill. A sickly maple located between the pool and the terrace was also removed. It was replaced with a cast concrete urn filled with SunPatiens and framed with a boxwood hedge. “They love sun,” Pedley says of the show-stopping annuals. “When you pull into the driveway, the urn is filled with flowers and it’s the first thing you see.”
Kelce and Pedley selected a variety of coral, orange, and red annuals for around the property, complementing the red accents in Hornsby’s new home interiors. “Julie has a very chic interior, and we wanted to replicate that on the outside,” says Pedley. The intense palette pops against sand-toned Sunbrella cushions, softening woven wicker seats on the terrace and the teak chaises longues poolside. Hornsby’s beloved pair of fiber clay Bodhisattva statues, which exude tranquility from atop the new water feature clad in white quartzite ledgestone, have been restored by Alyson Lehtman, Pedley’s “artsy” daughter.
The 11-foot-long custom concrete table under the pergola is by Atelier Vals. “The base is made from reclaimed timbers out of a Kentucky tobacco barn,” says Pedley. “The family has danced on top of it numerous times.” Two concrete benches offer seating on one side of the table, and the designers opted for black wicker chairs on the other. Amethyst Falls wisteria vines frame the pergola, which Hornsby opened up for a friend’s marriage ceremony last summer, originally planned as a destination wedding in Croatia.
Such graciousness is characteristic of Hornsby, says Pedley, who describes her client as family-oriented.
“This was a huge project for us, but we were confident that we could reshape the space and turn it into Julie’s vision,” Pedley says. “We are very pleased with how it turned out, but the fact that Julie loves it means everything.”
