Adagio Residence, Carmel-by-the-Sea (AIA Austin Design Excellence Award 2025)
Jessica Dune (formerly JMLA) designed a comprehensive landscape for this new home in the heart of the Carmel forest. Working closely with the Clients, Architect (Jobe Corral), General Contractor (Stocker+Allaire), and Landscape Contractor (Town + Country Landscapes), the entire project was designed around four existing elder Monterey pines and numerous legacy coast live oak trees. This modest but modern structure blends seamlessly into the forest, while a diverse palette of native understory ferns, reeds, grasses, and showy perennials offer a unique prehistoric aesthetic. Limestone terraces and steps are framed with vertical board-formed concrete and large, grey granite boulders. Site features include a granite millstone fountain, a steel soaking tub, deck, outdoor kitchen, and fire feature. Living roofs further help the site blend into the wider ecosystem.
Santa Lucia Preserve Residence, Carmel
Jessica worked with Bliss Landscape Architecture on this extensive landscape renovation project for a beautiful home designed by Moore Ruble Yudell Architects. We conceived a concept to improve the livability of both indoor and outdoor space via the addition of two large shade arbors intended to blend seamlessly with the architecture. This renovation involved the removal of a pool, which allowed us to capture one main, level outdoor living terrace (previously split on two planes). The project included renovations to the hardscape, the addition of an outdoor kitchen, fire pit, water feature, and a refreshed planting plan for the entire estate which complements the existing sycamore and oak trees, and blends with the surrounding grassland, full of meadowlarks. Firewise design. The project was executed by Groza Construction.
Pebble Beach Residence
Jessica Dune (formerly JMLA) designed a comprehensive landscape for this renovated home on a beautiful sand dune on the coast in Pebble Beach. Working closely with the Clients, Architect (Sterling Huddleson), General Contractor (Groza Construction), and Landscape Contractor (Native Coast Landscapes), the entire project benefited from an extensive ice plant removal effort paired with dune restoration using local genotype seeds collected from the nearby dunes and coastal bluffs. Hardscape improvements included a new driveway, retaining walls, a walled garden, and a fire feature on the view terrace. The home stands apart from others in the dune landscape due to the diversity of colorful native plants that grace the striking white sand. Pink sand verbena, artemesia, maritime poppy, seaside daisy, lizard’s tail, armeria, and numerous native buckwheats anchor the landscape in its most ancient and beautiful expression. The dune is lovingly tended by the homeowners, as well as Native Coast Landscapes.
Monterey Residence
Jessica Dune (formerly JMLA) designed a biodiverse native plant habitat garden in Monterey for Clients who tend it with great care. In a front yard on a hilltop in Monterey, CA, a strong groundcover matrix of manzanita and creeping salvia gives rise to majestic deer grass, with a diversity of 20 native California perennials and succulents offering seed, nectar and cover for many birds and butterflies. A second year of tending brought added diversity with divisions of perennials and grasses to make the most of the Client’s budget. A new curvelinear dry-stacked stone wall frames an upper terrace with an overstory of multi-stemmed arbutus. An intimate patio offers the couple a desirable place to interact with neighbors, and admire the year-round blooms and richness of life within this small but vibrant and vital garden.