Longfellow Drive
Manhattan Beach
A long flight of planted step terraces climbing the hillside at Longfellow Drive, a California Ranch style estate in Manhattan Beach where KAA Design did both the architecture and the landscape. The practice calls the design landscape first: four distinct garden settings around a house that terraces down the slope with the land, and this stepped slope sits just off the main living level, behind retractable glass walls that open the room to the gardens on either side.
The steps carry planting between every tread, California natives chosen as much to hold the slope as for looks, as Contemporist explained when it published these photographs in 2016. The picture is by Sharon Risedorph, the San Francisco architectural photographer.
KAA Design
KAA Design Group is a Los Angeles practice shaping residences since 1988, led by founding principal Grant Kirkpatrick and partner Duan Tran, with architecture, interiors and landscape architecture under one roof; Michael McGowan was the project landscape architect here.
KAA Design. Photography Sharon Risedorph. Seen via @alandscapearchitect.
The picture comes from this post on Instagram.
Researched August 2026. I credit each piece as carefully as I can; if you know more about this one, message me on Instagram.