The Gardens of Brook Klausing
Designer Brook Klausing of Brook Landscape talks about how to mix indoor and outdoor furniture and shows off four of his recent projects, including the garden of Jenna Lyons, creative director of J.Crew.
At no point amid the jumble of ABC Carpet & Home's six floors would the words “garden furniture” cross an ordinary person's mind. Brook Klausing, the Brooklyn-based landscape designer sees it everywhere. Prowling the Manhattan furniture emporium, he is arrested by a rusted iron console. “That's totally sick,” he raves. “It's the perfect garden piece. You can set up a bar on this baby for an outdoor soiree or wheel it indoors to use as that ‘everything table’ you toss the keys on.”
Blending indoors and out is Klausing's signature. “Why should your outdoors have a different aesthetic from your indoors?” he asks. The spaces Klausing has created for the Ford Models agency and, most recently, a Richard Meier—designed condominium in Brooklyn are sleek yet warm, casual yet grounded in classical ideas. He balances modernity and nostalgia, polish and texture. Most of all he creates outdoor spaces that are as sophisticated as many interiors.
Raised in Lexington, Kentucky, Klausing built a family lawn-mowing business into a multimillion dollar landscaping concern. In 2002, he moved to New York to work for fellow Kentuckian and designer Jon Carloftis. Today he runs his own company, Brook Landscape.
To view the full gallery of Klausing's shopping picks please refer to the Shopping with Brook Klausing Slide Show.
Click through this slide show to view some of Klausing's projects in New York City.
In this Park Slope, Brooklyn, backyard of Jenna Lyons, creative director for J.Crew, and her family, Klausing designed a recessed patio with multiple levels, surrounded by elephant ears, huchera, and Japanese holly. The table was custom made for the client and the chairs are from Design Within Reach.
Fpr the Manhattan home of handbag designer Monica Botkier, who lives here with her husband and three children, Klausing designed a planter box made out of blackened steel,filled with bamboo and a custom cedar fence.
This formal backyard in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, has a boxwood border, begonias in the front, as well as catmint in the back. The crape myrtle tree was already in the garden before Klausing added the fountain, the herringbone brick, and the bluestone patio.
See more gardens in New York.
This penthouse garden for the offices of Ford Models in New York has herringbone decking, boxwoods, and trees in simple, striking concrete planters.
