Luxe outdoor spaces are not defined by beautiful plantings alone. They are carefully created sanctuaries—places of serenity reflecting the way homeowners live, entertain, and unwind. In Southwest Florida, where the outdoors serve as an extension of the home year-round, opportunities abound for transforming private properties into bespoke retreats inspired by nature, passions, and preferences. Read on to learn how three area landscape architects visualize and realize the extraordinary.
Christian Busk of Busk & Associates
For more than four decades, landscape architect Christian Busk, owner of Busk & Associates and 41 Home & Garden, has helped define the look and feel of Naples’ most prestigious residential communities. As a fifth-generation Floridian, Busk arrived in Naples in 1979, when there were only three licensed landscape architects practicing in the region. Since then, he has designed the model landscapes for landmark communities, including Bonita Bay, Mediterra, Pelican Bay, Quail Creek, and Quail West. Today, he continues to oversee approximately 40 landscapes, though much of his work has shifted from new construction to renovations as Naples’ most coveted properties transfer across generations of owners.
In college, Busk double majored in landscape architecture and horticulture, with a specialization in golf course design. “One degree is learning how to grow the plants, and the other degree is trying to make everything as beautiful as you can with what you have left over,” explains Busk. “The secret is trying to get everything to balance for long-term performance.”
While many designers focus on individual elements, Busk believes exceptional outdoor spaces begin with understanding how people live. “My design process is creating places where people want to be,” says Busk. “Do they want to feel like they’re in Tahiti? Somewhere in Japan or Thailand? I learn where the breezes are coming through and where you are going to get the most wonderful view of your property.”
A recent standout project of Busk’s was sited at a modern estate in Port Royal and designed to evoke the feeling of a tropical jungle gradually unfolding. The experience begins along a driveway paved in flat Diana Royal stone and hammered and sandblasted granite, with bands of artificial turf crisscrossing the hardscape. Layers of texture and varied palm species are interwoven with native plantings, such as sea grape, seaside mahoe, and coontie, a native cycad once used as a food source by Indigenous peoples. Philodendron Burle Marx forms a lush ground cover, while boulders, sculpted from native coral stone from the Florida Keys, elevate the garden beds and improve drainage. Staggered panels and softly illuminated marble steps, flanked by rare flame-colored bougainvillea, lead through a modern trellis to the front entrance. Here, a water garden with floating benches, framed by the brilliant yellow blooms of a cassia tree and the delicate texture of Ming ferns, greets guests.
Serenity continues through stone steps bordered by Buddha belly bamboo leading into the backyard, complete with a tiered pool area and Zen garden. The pool’s tile transitions from dark to light and incorporates an elevated children’s pool, a lounge shelf, built-in seating, and a Lucite-paneled waterfall. Palm fronds camouflage and shade the space while silver buttonwood, seafoam-hued Agave attenuata, Chinese fan palms, and bird-of-paradise guide the eye toward an elevated firepit and gathering area with sweeping views of Naples Bay. “We take them on a journey through their landscape, and that’s kind of the thrill of it all,” states Busk.
One of Busk’s favorite long-term projects demonstrates how a landscape can evolve alongside its owners. Originally designed nearly 40 years ago, the Port Royal property has passed through four owners, yet Busk has returned repeatedly to update and reinvent the landscape while respecting its original framework, including an Asian mahogany-designed pagoda serving as garden folly and a memory point. For the current owner, Busk created a classic French backyard with symmetrical date palms and winding brick pathways lined with rows of ground orchids, gardenias, white begonias, bromeliads, holly fern, and heavenly scented ylang-ylang (one of the official scents for Chanel No. 5 perfume). Placed as a focal point, a stately Roman sculpture anchors the curved pool area complete with an expansive lounge shelf, allowing the owner’s six poodles to take a refreshing dip with ease. Says Busk, “I describe my design process as an artist creating a living painting with layers of tailored details and textures allowing your eye to move everywhere.”
Koby Kirwin of Exteriors by Koby Kirwin
Inspired by hip-hop legends, including Dr. Dre, Naples-based landscape architect Koby Kirwin of Exteriors by Koby Kirwin refers to himself as a visual DJ and producer who uses trees, water, stone, and light as his instruments. His goal is to make each home’s landscape feel like a private luxury resort and an everyday vacation. “I don’t design resorts for homes; I design homes that make resorts unnecessary,” explains Kirwin. “To me, that’s the future of luxury—not escaping your life for weeks at a time but creating a place you’re excited to come home to every single day.”
As luxury homeowners spend more time at home, the residence has become the office, the resort, the restaurant, the gym, and the spa with more requests for Kirwin to design in-demand mahjong-gathering spaces, outdoor yoga and Pilates areas, and potted gardens with fruits and vegetables. “What I chase is wonderment where people will ask, ‘What’s happening behind that courtyard?’ You only find out when you get invited into it,” expresses Kirwin.
During his college years working as a lifeguard at the tropical-rich Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort, Kirwin learned to see landscaping as a way of storytelling through design, architecture, and plantings. “For Disney, it wasn’t just putting a tree here or bush there; they were manipulating people’s behavior—how they walked, what they did,” remarks Kirwin.
Kirwin operates a 5-acre nursery he lovingly refers to as “the island of misfit toys.” “I’m looking for the tree that’s escaped from the Dr. Seuss book, right?,” says Kirwin. “I want the palm tree that’s 30 years old that’s been grown in a corner, twisted and contorted. That has value to me.”
A unique project Kirwin completed was building a house for a client who expressed he had always wanted a slide, but his wife was not on board. Says Kirwin, “The client pulled me aside and said, ‘Figure it out. She doesn’t want to see it, and I want it.’ How do you make that happen? I’ve only designed two slides in 35 years. The end-result photo of a 6-year-old boy flying down a slide that was cleverly hidden in a side garden is a pivotable moment in my portfolio.”
Another extraordinary project Kirwin designed was a lazy river for a client in Mediterra. “This was an enormous commitment to something abnormal,” relays Kirwin. “You have to have a huge personality to walk someone out to your backyard and be like, ‘Welcome to my lazy river!’ But for this person, that’s how they wanted to spend time with their family. I’m chasing passion, interest, and desire; I want to create what relaxes you and makes you linger longer at your property.”
Christian Andrea of Architectural Land Design, Inc.
In Southwest Florida, the backyard is no longer simply an accessory to the architecture. Christian Andrea, principal of Architectural Land Design, Inc., who has designed everything from intimate residential gardens to expansive estates, likens his design process to a chef on a game show being handed a fixed selection of ingredients. Except for him, such ingredients include the client’s lifestyle, aesthetic preferences, budget, desired amenities, and other factors. His task is to shape these elements into a “meal” with a cohesive finished landscape that feels intentional and personal. “I call the backyard the heart and soul of the house,” remarks Andrea. “When I’m standing back there looking from the living room, looking out at that space, that’s how we start the conversation: What does the client want to see?”
Andrea has seen current homeowners asking for oversize lanais that function as complete extensions of the home, doubling as outdoor living rooms and equipped with fireplaces, kitchens, dining areas, expansive seating arrangements, and entertainment spaces. Beyond the lanai, homeowners continue to request bocce courts, dog runs, and increasingly customized recreational spaces. Rather than imposing a signature style, Andrea believes every landscape should reflect the people living within it. “We’re just the tour guide,” says Andrea. “We get them to where they want to be.”
In Southwest Florida, many homeowners instinctively seek uninterrupted water views, but Andrea believes carefully framing the scenery often creates a more compelling experience. “When you put trees in the foreground, they actually enhance the perspective and make the view feel deeper,” states Andrea.
Just as important, Andrea continues advocating for large canopy trees, as he believes they soften the scale of large homes, frame views, cool streets, and create visual depth that rows of palms alone cannot achieve. “I often tell people that we landscape the sky more than we do the ground,” expresses Andrea. “Creating more of a shaded skyline is an important aspect of design.”
Among Andrea’s favorite projects was one that challenged the traditional relationship between house and garden. Rather than centering the property around a grand residence, the owners envisioned approximately 15 acres as a living organic landscape. Hundreds of varieties of plants, citrus groves, fruit trees, berries, vegetable gardens, winding nature trails, a bamboo forest, and a pond became the property’s defining features, while a relatively modest home occupied only a small portion of the site. “We find the energy and input that a client brings to a project act as the catalyst that leads to the finished design,” states Andrea.
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