We’re checking back in on Valley View, an 11-acre property in northern Delaware where Danilo and the Maffei Landscape Design team are developing a master plan that connects the home, gardens, and surrounding woodland into one cohesive experience. In Parts 1 and 2, we shared the early concept work behind the arrival courtyard, the vanishing water feature, and the way the home will gradually reveal itself as visitors move through the property. Now, we’re looking more closely at how the landscape will actually feel to live in, from quiet mornings on the terrace to winding walks through naturalistic gardens.
Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
DESIGNING FOR THE WAY LIFE ACTUALLY HAPPENS
This is where Danilo’s approach really comes through. He’s constantly asking how a space will be used, not just how it will look.
For Valley View, that means thinking about how the owners might sit in the backyard looking out into the woods. How the rear terrace can frame a natural tree line. How pedestrian pathways can follow the contours of the land like flowing streams, guiding movement through the garden. And how lower-level sitting areas can be tucked into the topography itself, bracketed by the architecture above.
Up against the house, the design becomes more organized and geometric, matching the lines of the building. As you move outward, it gradually relaxes into something more naturalistic, blending into the woodland edge. The transition is intentional, and it makes the whole property feel like a continuous, living environment.
THE ARRIVAL EXPERIENCE
One of our favorite moments in the Valley View concept is the arrival sequence. The land rises in one area and dips in another, with the house sitting in the middle. By routing the driveway around the rise, the house will reveal itself gradually as visitors crest the hill, which is a small piece of choreography that turns coming home into an experience.
From there, the drive opens into a parking court flanked by gardens and trees, leading into an arrival garden just outside the dine-in kitchen. Danilo is envisioning a vanishing water feature at the center. This would be a sculptural stone where water trickles down and recirculates through gravel below. It’s something calming to look out on from the kitchen window, and something that quietly greets the family every time they pull in.
CREATING GARDENS THAT EVOLVE WITH THE SEASONS
Another important part of the Valley View vision is creating gardens the homeowners can engage with directly. Through early conversations, Danilo learned that the owners do not just want a landscape to look at from afar. They want gardens they can walk through, tend to, and enjoy as part of their daily life. That means designing a naturalistic garden experience that feels rooted in the surrounding woodland, with terraces close to the house that gradually transition into mulch paths along the edge of the woods. The planting will be designed to unfold throughout the year: flowering shrubs and trees in spring, warmer color in summer, bronze foliage and native grasses in fall, and layers of texture that keep the garden interesting as the seasons change.
From the owner’s suite, where glass frames a long view across the woodland edge, the goal is to create a beautiful morning experience: sunlight filtering through the trees, naturalistic gardens in the foreground, and the woods glowing beyond. It is a landscape meant to be lived in slowly, from the first cup of coffee on the terrace to an evening walk through the garden.
WHAT’S NEXT
Concept development is where the bones of a project get set. Every decision made at this stage ripples through everything that follows — the planting plan, the hardscape materials, the lighting, and the small details that make a garden feel like it truly belongs to its setting.
Valley View is moving along beautifully, and we’ll keep sharing updates as the project moves from concept into design development.