Stephen Suzman

Each month, LuxeSF profiles a member of The Luxury Marketing Council. This month we chat with Stephen Suzman, Founder and Principal of Suzman & Cole Design Associates, the Bay Area’s premier landscape architect and design company. With a global portfolio of clients and assignments, Suzman & Cole has written the rules and established the direction that guides much of today’s high-end landscape design practice. Stephen Suzman tells us how they achieved that distinction.

LuxeSF: Let’s start off with a background on Stephen Suzman and the company.

Suzman: I was born in South Africa and educated at the University of Witwatersrand. After living in France and Italy for several months I went on to Oxford where I read modern languages – French and Italian.  I returned to South Africa, worked in family businesses- and anti-apartheid politics. I decided to pursue a business degree in the U.S. at Stanford from 1972-74. After graduation, I worked for a bank and as a head hunter in the finance and accounting industry for about 8 years.

I have always been passionate about gardens and had spent a lot of my time when I was in Europe visiting houses and gardens. one day in 1982, Randy Hester, who was then about to become the Chairman of the Department of Landscape Architecture at UC Berkeley visited me and said  “What a lovely garden.  Why don’t you do this for a living?” So off I went to study at the Inchbald School of Design in the UK and following that, came back to the Bay Area and started working for a landscape architect Steven Marcus. My very first design was for a fragrant garden at Garden Valley Ranch in Petaluma run by Rosarian Ray Reddell. Shortly after this garden was installed, I met Paul Wiseman a celebrated interior designer who recognized my talents long before I did and he began to promote me heavily. So that is how I got started.

LuxeSF: And the firm is how big today?

Suzman: It’s now about 21 people, down from over 35 during the dotcom boom. Todd Cole and I joined forces after the dotcom bust. Our combined talents dovetailed neatly and created considerable design synergy.  Todd, who hails from upstate New York, was trained in North Carolina and Philadelphia and had produced a significant body of very beautiful gardens and estates. Before founding his own firm, he worked for several prestigious firms on Long Island, in Philadelphia, Denver and Santa Barbara. Currently, SCDA is in the process of creating a number of synergistic alliances with other landscape design firms in order to increase both our range of design style, such as Japanese, and market sector penetration.

LuxeSF: To the extent that you’re allowed to talk about them, what are two or three major assignments that you’ve undertaken during your career?

Suzman: The first really big job that I got was working for Jeanne and Sandy Robertson on Francisco Street, in partnership with architect Sandy Walker and Paul Wiseman. It was the oldest house in San Francisco. The house underwent a major remodel without sacrificing its character. It is built on a double lot – rather a large site for San Francisco with quite a lot of hardscape challenges, and my aim was to ensure that it looked as if the landscape had always been there. We removed a number of overgrown trees, and used all of the bricks on the paths to extend existing retaining walls. We had to go to the East Coast to find old looking brick to match for the new paving. The clients didn’t want the garden to look too showy at any one time. So, one of the features of the garden was importing huge specimen Rhododendrons mostly provided by Paul Molinari of Enjoy Rhododendrons which bloom sequentially from February through May. The key to their success over 20 years has been extensive soil preparation and excellent follow up maintenance.

Another assignment that I’m very proud of is the Locksley Hall job in Belvedere .I was invited by the architect Sandy Walker and interior designer Suzanne Tucker to enter a competition which our firm won. We re-graded the site to make it look as if there had always been a terraced garden around this Italian-Victorian house.  Part of this  major renovation included underground change rooms, hydraulically-operated bronze gates, a pergola with  monolithic  Chinese sandstone columns with teak  beams and joists, custom  bronze railings ,fountains, pool safety fence and light fixtures.  Many of the custom metal details were derived by landscape architect Jean Schaffeld from a Julia Morgan light fixture and gate that were already on the property .We created major retaining walls veneered with stone salvaged from the facades of houses from villages drowned by the Yangtze Dam. Steps and paving utilized slabs from old granite roads. This project took about five years to design and build.

I’m also very proud of a job I did in Los Altos Hills, Morgan Manor for Kelly and Christina Porter, in conjunction with Richard Beard and Lisa Victor of BAR Architects.  It was an ‘Edwardian Tudor’ mansion built in the 1920’s that never had a proper garden.  It had been used as a girls’ school after the 1929 crash and had asphalt coming right up to the house.  What I did, through judicious re-grading was to create a garden that looked as if it might have been built by the Edwardians in the Tudor style. We developed a gracious entry, a large pool terrace with fountains and axially located great lawn off the main entrance, culminating in a focal point of a grassy, conical Tudor Mound.

LuxeSF: The most expensive job you’ve done?

Suzman: We’ve had several jobs where the landscape budgets have been in excess of $5 million…some were more than $10 million.  Some of the big ticket items include the length and height of retaining walls, the extent of paving (particularly if expensive stone is selected), the number and size of specimen trees and the complexity of any water and fire features. Sculpture can also be expensive.

But on average, most of our jobs cost between $250,000 and a million.  Most of our swimming pool/spas will cost between $80,000 and $200,000. But let me stress that we also do small jobs, where the total installation cost is under $100,000. And we do consultations where clients can get a lot of benefit from a two-hour session.

LuxeSF: The ideal assignment for you is what?

Suzman: The three big jobs that I have outlined earlier were all traditional jobs…Victorian, Italian-Victorian and Tudor-Edwardian.  But we also like to design cutting edge contemporary work, courtyard gardens, tropical gardens and simple, rural gardens. Todd in particular has designed some spectacular contemporary gardens including a private resort in Kona, Hawaii with several custom water and fire features, and a restrained contemporary desert house in Scottsdale, Arizona.

We consider our firm as deliberately non-iconic. We are site-specific, architecture-appropriate and client-directed.  So, an ideal job for us is principally one with interesting clients who are open to suggestion and who have ideas of their own.  Secondly, we like to do jobs of a certain size, because it is much more cost-effective not having to go from job to job.  We like to work in areas and styles we haven’t worked in before.  We would like to be working with clients who have an interest in being somewhat “green”, although that’s not our driving force.

We are promoting a number of water and energy saving devices and lower carbon footprints for the client who wants to go in that direction. Stone, while expensive can be considered as ‘green’ because it generally lasts for thousands of years and once it has been quarried and delivered requires little maintenance. Concrete requires a great deal of energy to produce and has a relatively short life span.

Our geographic reach traditionally has been from Cloverdale to Alamo to Pebble Beach and Carmel.  We have worked in Southern California.  We do a lot of work in Hawaii, and have handled assignments in Montana, Scottsdale, Palm Springs, Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, Delaware, Martha’s Vineyard, Upstate New York, Paris and Dorset, England.  We are currently involved in a large, formal French style garden in Indonesia.

LuxeSF: The motivation for extensive exterior landscaping – is it appreciation of beauty?  Enhancement of lifestyle?  “Look what my money can buy?”

Suzman: Its many different things.  In a city it’s privacy or an extension of the indoor space, especially in mild climates.  In a country property it can be how do I connect the man-made to the natural? How do I connect the indoors with the outdoors?  What are the recreational needs of my family?  Do I want a pool?  Do I want a tennis court?  Do I want a bocce ball court?  Do I have children?  What do they need?  How do I entertain?  Do I want meditation?  Do I want serenity?  Is this a retreat or is it a place where I entertain my business guests?  Do I love flowers and plants?  And some of it is indeed for show.  People have different attitudes toward what they want, and it’s up to us to show them what’s possible.

LuxeSF: Do you think there’s one dominant motivation?

Suzman: Most people want to put too many elements into too small of a space.   It can be very frustrating for many of our clients to have to deal with the huge number of zoning, code and setback restrictions that exist in many of the Bay Area jurisdictions.  People who have bought a five or ten acre lot realize they can’t have all of their dreams fulfilled, so they have to make compromises.  It’s our function to try and include as much of their wish list as we can without breaking the law or making the property look “crowded or shoehorned” That is part of our art.

LuxeSF: What’s hot right now?

Suzman: Anything green… green roof, green walls, trying to save water, underground watering systems for lawns. Right now I’m trying to promote succulents, plants that don’t require too much water.

LuxeSF: When you get a design assignment, what’s the protocol from the time you pick up the phone to the time the job is completed?

Suzman: The potential client calls me.  I listen to what they have to say.  The first step, after I find out their need, is to send them a simple questionnaire.  I want to make them think about what they want. The questionnaire asks them how they use the garden, who will be using it, what their color and style preferences are, and what elements they might wish to include.

LuxeSF: Do you traditionally deal with male or female, or both?

Suzman: It’s both. It used to be the women, but the men are getting more involved. It could be because of the money aspect, because a lot of what we do is hard surface construction and not just the planting of pretty flowers.  A lot of what a landscape designer does is to act as the lynchpin between the architect, the client, the interior designer, the engineer, the jurisdiction that the house is in, the neighbors, and the earth and nature.

LuxeSF: And are you traditionally left alone by the architect?

Suzman: No, we’re not.  Architects often impinge upon our territory because they often like to control all the hardscape.  Sometimes this is completely justified when there is a name brand architect such as a Legorreta. Many architects think they can do grading – some can, many can’t.  Sometimes a civil engineer ends up doing the grading, and they take the line of least resistance.  They grade for function, but not for aesthetics. We prefer to design everything outside the skin of the house, acting as a member of a larger team and let the architects handle the house and anything that’s attached to the house. Collaboration is key here. I like to check my ego at the door when involved in a team meeting. Many of the best results come from team efforts. Some of the best design ideas have come from interior designers who know their clients intimately in a way we often cannot.

But back to the protocol – we send out the questionnaire and upon receipt, we visit the site, come up with some initial thinking and ideas and then sell the client on our services.  In terms of design, we go through many steps.  First, there’s the schematic design phase when we come up with two or three options as to how to divide up the land from a plan point of view, illustrated by images and sketches. We then do design development where we are designing in 3D…what the pool coping looks like… what a gazebo or pergola looks like… what are the materials… what is the plant  palette?  And then we proceed to the construction documents which are detailed drawings showing how it is going to be built, and how it will be bid out.  There is a planting schedule showing each plant… species and size and specifications as to how it should be planted.  Incidentally, we prefer to purchase the plant material ourselves so we have better control over quality. There are soils specifications.  There is the irrigation plan. There is a lighting plan.

We coordinate with architects so that things like air conditioning and generators are properly sited.  We provide construction details, including grading and drainage.  We develop a layout plan so that the contractor knows exactly how to lay out a path, follow paving patterns, etc. We also provide a materials plan. Sometimes our construction sets can comprise 50 + pages of detailed drawings.  How the fountains are constructed, for example.  We also handle detailed custom design of spas, planter boxes, light fixtures, fire elements, gates, etc.
We then put everything out to bid with a landscape or general contractor, and after choosing a bidder we then do what is known as construction observation where we review the construction.

And let’s not forget the permit process.  Sometimes this is done by the architect, sometimes by us, and sometimes by the contractor.  Permitting is often a complicated challenge involving presentations to Design Review Boards.

LuxeSF: Let’s discuss follow-up.  The job is completed, you hand it over the keys to the garden.  To what extent do you stay involved after the job is completed?

Suzman: We very much like to stay involved on a quarterly basis for the first year, and preferably for a long time afterward.  We like to provide a maintenance manual and stay involved in the upkeep.

LuxeSF: When you go back five years later and you see that beautiful garden or that landscape that you were responsible for, what’s the feeling you have?  Where is the satisfaction?

Suzman: Well, it depends on whether or not it’s been well or poorly maintained.

LuxeSF: Assume it’s been well maintained.

Suzman: Then I get enormous satisfaction.  First of all I would see what worked and what didn’t.  Sometimes things don’t.  I expect all of the hard surface elements to work.  Sometimes plants, like individuals, get sick and die, or they’re growing too fast or too slowly.  Conditions change. Trees grow and sunny gardens become shady so the groundcover and perennials have to change.  There is always the question about how densely to plant. Does the client want immediate gratification, in which case the garden will look good immediately but will appear to be crowded and overplanted after a few years, or is the client prepared to wait. There is no right answer. But most times I’m just please at how well things have done, and it’s wonderful to see the same family really enjoying a garden after 25 years.

LuxeSF: Let’s talk about marketing.  How and where do you derive your leads and your customer base?

Suzman: Well, I started by deriving them from personal friends, then from interior designers, from architects and from realtors. And then I started getting them from chance encounters because I’m out and about a lot, at a gallery opening, an opera or symphony performance, a charity benefit or a political event. I get referrals from the strangest places.

LuxeSF: But it’s primarily word-of-mouth and referral?

Suzman: It’s word-of-mouth and referrals, supplemented by direct marketing to architects, interior designers, engineers, contractors, vendors and realtors, as well as advertising, Showcases, the Antiques Dealer’s Show and pro-bono work for Schools and charities.

LuxeSF: Let’s say you decide you’re going to use a particular type of succulent or a particular hard surface, how do you source those materials?  Do you have your own special contacts?

Suzman: We have the best materials library of any landscape designer in the Bay Area because stone, brick, tile and gravel are our stock-in-trade.  We spend a lot of time and money keeping the hardscape library up to date, and deal with many stone vendors all across the country. Similarly, we have a full-time person who sources plant materials, so she can tell me, “Well, you know, we can’t specify “x” this year because the crop has failed” or “This year there is a new bug that’s decimated that plant.” Or “There is a fabulous specimen English Oak at such and such a nursery in Oregon…”

LuxeSF: For somebody reading this who is contemplating a landscaping assignment, what’s the one piece of advice you would give them?

Suzman: I think they should really think about what they want to achieve.  What is the garden’s function?  Do they want to resell the property immediately, to screen an ugly view, to create the illusion of outdoor space outside an important room?  Do they want a play area for their kids? Don’t bite off more than you can chew.  If you haven’t got the means to support a large maintenance service, don’t ask for acres of perennial gardens.  We don’t live in Edwardian times when people could afford half a dozen full-time gardeners.

LuxeSF: When you see a job that becomes difficult, the biggest mistake you see from a client’s perspective is what?

Suzman: Impatience! Wanting a job to be done and installed too quickly. You sacrifice quality and make mistakes.  You also have to follow rules such as grading moratoriums, and you can’t control the permitting process. And start early. Don’t just wake up in spring, which is what so many people do, and think, “Oh! Now is the time to start my pool… and I’d love to have it by the 4th of July.”

LuxeSF: When should they have had that conversation?

Suzman: September or October prior, so all the drawings have been completed in the winter, submitted for approval, and construction commenced as soon as the grading moratorium is over in March.

LuxeSF: What are your ambitions?

Suzman: Some of my personal ambitions would be to do a wonderful, traditional garden on Long Island or in Connecticut or Westchester.  I would love to do a beautiful garden in the south of England or the south of France or in Italy. And both Todd Cole my business partner and I would love to design a really beautiful, large, cutting-edge modern garden somewhere in the Bay Area.  We also like to do roof gardens. I would also like to work with a client who is open to fresh, even quirky and whimsical ideas – open to new ways of thinking about space and design.

Stephen Suzman is an original founder of Suzman & Cole Design Associates, practicing landscape design for over 22 years.

With projects throughout the United States (including Hawaii, the Rocky Mountains and New England), Mr. Suzman’s project experience spans internationally to include Mexico, England, France, South Africa and the Middle East. Previously residing in France, Italy, England and South Africa, Mr. Suzman has developed extensive contacts with the art world and landscape industries. Working with his experienced design team, Mr. Suzman excels in locating and obtaining such specialty items as antique statuary, newly commissioned sculpture, ornamental metalwork, custom tiles and paving, fountains, unique site furnishings, heirloom roses, exotic plant materials and hard-to-find specimen.

Mr. Suzman’s designs have received numerous awards and publications from such prestigious organizations as the American Society of Landscape Architects, Architectural Digest, Sunset Publications, Northern California Home & Design, Elle Décor, Garden Design and Restoration Magazine.