Normally, Residential Systems does not feature landscapers, but Hillard, Ohio’s Hidden Creek Landscaping is not your typical landscape company. Sure, lawn care and tree trimming are all part of the package, but, as evidenced by a recent whole-home remodel in Dublin, Ohio, there is a lot more to this business.
For this 1.5-acre property, Hidden Creek not only designed and installed the pool, patio, outdoor kitchen, and spa, but it also handled all the landscape design, including outdoor lighting and audio.
“We’ve been doing lighting for the last 15 years,” says Jason Cromley, CEO of Hidden Creek. “I really enjoy the lighting; to me it’s the gamechanger. You don’t want your clients leaving your patio to go inside just because it got dark. That’s the best time to be outside. The lights change the ambiance of space. The security aspect of lighting is the no-brainer — it does that automatically.
“We’ve been installing Coastal Source for about six years, starting just with lights and then adding the speakers in the last three years,” he continues. “Coastal Source has made it super-easy to approach audio, but, right now, when something goes wrong, there are only a couple of people on staff who know how to go out and fix it. We are going to upgrade our education throughout all the staff to teach them what’s going on with outdoor audio.”
The firm does have experience with automation, Control4 in particular, but it will work with an integrator to make sure the inside and the outside work together as the client needs. “Four out of five times the client already has an integrator they are working with,” says Cromley, “but every once in a while we’re able to bring somebody in that we know, and that’s always great.”
Lighting the Way
For this project, the new homeowners wanted to do a complete remodel, and so they brought in a general contractor who, in turn, brought in Hidden Creek. The outdoor scope of the project was big, including building the pool, kitchen, and other amenities. But for the family to get the full effect of those spaces, Cromley knew that the lighting and sound would play a large role.
For pathway lighting, Hidden Creek used a series of Coastal Source fixtures, including Classic Hat Path lights on the walkways, Niche curved and square path lights to highlight transitions and edges, and Niche wash lights embedded in the stonework. Well lights were used to add uplighting to plantings and hardscape.
“The Niche lights in the limestone treads are probably some of the hardest to do,” Cromley notes. “You’re drilling through a piece of stone that weighs 400 pounds and you’ve got to go through it without causing a fracture point. So, putting those in at the right location is never easy to do, but it does go to show the skills and the quality and the patience of the team we have that makes sure we get that right.”
Related: Case Study – Transforming Outdoor Spaces with Concealed TV Lifts
Although there were plenty of lights being used, Cromley thought a key type was missing. “One of my favorite lights is the Tiki light, but there were zero Tikis in this project,” he says. “We were doing an on-site training session with our team where we placed the lights and explained why we put them there, and I had asked how many Tikis were going in. When they told me they didn’t put any in, I took out two Tikis just to show my team how they work. The homeowner saw them and asked about them and…we sold nine of them.
“Clients don’t know what they don’t know, and he didn’t know Tikis were an option. I told my designers that they missed out on a huge opportunity, but what better way to do it than where the client asked for them rather than you trying to upsell them.”
While Tiki lights are a favorite of Cromley, they can’t be used to light his favorite illuminated object: “Boulders are my favorite thing to light,” he confesses. “They never grow, you don’t have to prune them, and they never die. Once you put a light on a plant, in two years, you’ve got to move the light because things have adjusted. But when you get to light a boulder — boom. Let’s just hit that boulder and never change it.”
Finding the Focal Tree
The opposite of the simplicity of lighting a boulder would be lighting the giant trees that surround the property and frame the view of the river. Coastal Source Uni Ball tree lights were used to create the overhead canopy effects.
“We did quite a few lights set up at the bottom of the tree, working our way up, which is typical,” explains Cromley. “We’re usually using a Bullet on a riser when we can. We like to keep those in the landscape so that we’re not trying to mow around them.
“We sent our guys down to Coastal Source training in Kentucky a couple of years ago where they learned some downlighting techniques,” he adds. “We started to see what downlighting can bring, so we put that into our portfolio this year. We made sure that it’s three lights up and three lights down on some of the larger trees.
“And you must find your focal tree. There are a hundred trees on this property, and they can’t afford to light them all. So, what’s the one tree that, when they’re inside, is the one they want to look out and see? In this case, it was the one that’s across the pool. As you go up that tree, you’ll see lights coming down from that tree.
“A lot of landscapers are not going to go up in a tree. They don’t want to take the wire up there and they don’t want to secure it to the tree properly. We’ll do it. And we’ve learned, after a lightning strike at this property, that there’s a kit Coastal Source puts on the downlights in case the tree is hit. A special fuse kept the whole system from blowing because it blew the fuse right at the fixture itself. So, Coastal Source knew this, saw it, prevented it, and made it happen the right way.”
Outdoor Sounds
The outdoor audio system features four Coastal Source Razor 220 white speakers that were retrofitted onto the deck, and four 10.0 three-way Bollard speakers were placed around the fire pit and outdoor kitchen zones. The speakers are powered by Coastal Source’s SAS600/4 and CRS700/4 amplifiers.
“This is a big yard, and if I had carte blanche to design it, I would have had 14 speakers going from the upper deck to the fire pit to the spa to the outdoor kitchen to the sitting patio. Nothing extreme — just plenty of little speakers by those spaces and then bigger ones all the way down to the shoreline so they could have their music just thumping if they wanted to hear while they are out on the water.
“Those speakers are on my radar for this year,” he adds. “That’s the nice thing about the Coastal Source system: If the client wants to upgrade the amp, we just have to take out the current amp and put a new one in. The wire’s there, so we’ve got everything we need. We always give ourselves an out to be able to add extra gear down the line. There’s definitely that opportunity.”
Future Visions
Cromley has plenty of ideas on how to keep enhancing this customer’s home, and, as their regular landscaper, he has constant contact with them in addition to a regular maintenance contract. That is a great help in overcoming what he calls “financial fatigue” after a big job.
“The beauty of doing the maintenance for two or three years is that we never leave their mind,” says Cromley. “So, when they’re ready to add additional lights and speakers, I’ll have my people do it. We try to give our clients their space after a big project — do just the basics, maintain it, and then be ready to say, ‘Now it’s time, right?’ They see the value of what they’ve already gotten, which makes it easy for us to make a short-term client a long-term relationship.
“We try to give the client all the opportunities to be very happy with their investment and have even more opportunities to keep enhancing as time goes by. Note that I said ‘enhancing’ and not ‘maintaining.’ No one wants to pay for an oil change or to switch the tires on their car. No one ever wants to do that, but you have to.”
Cromley is fairly certain he will be adding additional lights to this home at some point because he has experienced their addictive qualities for himself. “I blew the budget at my own house,” he concludes. “Every single year, I’ve added lights to the project — and it’s not one or two, it’s around 15. I think I’m up to 90 lights in my backyard, and my yard is a third of the size of this project here!
“Lights are addicting because you see the instant value. Lights will enhance your patio, your steps, your boulders, and your plants. The beauty of what lighting brings to the table is that it highlights all the different layers that you already have in place.”
For more information, visit https://www.hiddencreeklandscaping.com.
