At Home in Arkansas: Your firm has been involved in landscaping some of the state’s most prestigious sites, including the Clinton Presidential Center, Heifer International’s headquarters and most recently Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Did you begin your own home’s landscape with a similar approach?
Landscape designer Frank Sharum: Those were very large-scale projects, but many of the same principles apply. My wife, Jana, and I built this home about eight years ago, and we considered the lot and what was preexisting from the beginning of our design, as I would with any project. There were large oak trees that we wanted to preserve, and we nestled our house among them rather than clearing the lot to build. In the backyard, there was a second group of trees, including a Savannah holly and a weeping Japanese maple; we placed the pool with preserving those trees and providing some shade in mind.
Do you and Jana spend a lot of time by the pool?
…
