I confess: as I saved photos for this story over the last several weeks, I stored them in a folder called "Not-Ugly Water Features." Because, well, many garden water features are overly ornate. Or are fake-y replicas of nature scenes. Or involve water peeing from a faux-stone boy.
But who doesn't love the sound of babbling water in the garden, and who isn't transfixed by a pool or fountain? A water feature is an indicator of a garden that's "made it"—and when done right, feels like the ultimate outdoor luxury. Here are ten we like, from members of the Remodelista + Gardenista Architect/Designer Directory:
Above: Water pours from a curved bronze wall in a San Francisco landscape designed by Lutsko Associates. See more of the modern landscape, divided into distinct "rooms," in Pacific Heights Mystery: A Hidden City Garden Reveals Its Secrets.
Above: San Francisco-based Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture designed this barely-moving pool for a modern home in Hillsborough, California. See more from Cochran in Garden Visit: Andrea Cochran's Courtyard Vignettes and Architects' Roundup: 10 Landscapes Designed Around a Single Tree. Photograph by Marion Brenner.
Above: Coen + Partners redesigned this courtyard garden surrounding the 110-year-old Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis. For more from Coen + Partners, see A Copper-Clad Modernist Gem in the Big Woods.
Above: Famed French garden designers Arnaud Maurières and Eric Ossart now live in Morocco, and they've applied their newfound Eastern aesthetic to their recent redesign of the gardens at La Noria in the south of France. Here, they've updated an ancient irrigation system that runs throughout the grounds. For more of the project, see Landscape Architect Visit: La Noria in the South of France. Photograph by Clive Nichols.
Above: Water flows over the edges of a bowl in a Los Altos Hills, Calfornia garden designed by Monterey-based Bernard Trainor + Associates. Next to the fountain is a concrete seating wall. For more, see Landscape Architect Visit: Bernard Trainor's Most Beautiful Swimming Pool.
Above: This Cor-ten steel water feature sits in a rooftop garden in Manhattan's East Village. Designed by Pulltab Design and fabricated by Stephen Iino, the fountain is intended to develop a patina over time. See the whole project and more of the water feature in A Manhattan Roof Garden with a Panoramic View. Photograph by Bilyana Dimitrova.
Above: This residential garden by Stephen Stimson Associates occupies a steep wooded hillside with a number of pools, fountains, and aqueducts running through it. See another view of the residence in Architects' Roundup: 10 Emerald Green Gardens. Photograph by Rob Cardillo.
Above: Another water feature in the same garden by Stephen Stimson. For more of Stimson's work, see Architects' Roundup: 10 Contemporary Farmhouse Gardens and Landscape Architect Visit: A Very American Garden on Cape Cod. Photograph by Rob Cardillo.
Above: SF-based Hart Wright Architects designed a custom water feature in the backyard of this midcentury remodel outside of San Francisco. For the "before," see Architect Visit: Lafayette Remodel by Hart Wright Architects.
Above: The landscape of this historic Greenwich, Connecticut estate was designed by Doyle Herman Design Associates, for which the firm won a best landscape award from the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. See this project and more in The Grandes Dames: 10 Stately Gardens from the Gardenista Gallery.
Keep exploring our garden roundups: 10 Garden Stairways, 10 Outdoor Pools, 10 Early Evening Gardens, 10 Stately Gardens, and 10 Contemporary Farmhouse Gardens.
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