From Pit to Pinnacle
19 Jan 2014
When floodwaters ravaged many houses here in September, Neil and Cathy Borman weren’t home. Their neighborhood was particularly hard hit, and the Bormans’ home by Wonderland Lake could have been yet another casualty.
By Lisa Truesdale The problematic front yard had a badly leaning, 7-foot-tall retaining wall made of old railroad ties. The wall ran perpendicular to the house, and a small drain was right up against the entrance to the home’s walkout basement. “We started referring to the front yard as ‘the pit,’” Cathy says, “which made it a little difficult to envision what to change.” Indeed, the sunken “pit” would have filled with floodwater that would have destroyed the home if not for the new landscape and drainage system the homeowners installed shortly after moving in.
“Luckily, everything was fine,” Neil says. “But if we had left things as they were, that (retaining) wall would have caved for sure, and all that water would have headed directly toward the house, and our lower level would have been completely flooded.”
“That’s why you get people to help who know what they’re doing, and just let them do their thing,” Cathy says.
After meeting with the Bormans, landscape architect Elizabeth Ochsner of Native Edge Associates in Boulder drew up two plans that met the couple’s must-haves and would-likes. Both plans proposed a three-terrace landscape with a water feature, a flagstone patio and steps, and planting beds.
“We wanted to keep it rustic, not neat and clean,” Neil says, “and I definitely wanted the water feature, though nothing like the black plastic pond that was there before.”
Instead, the plans called for a small shallow pond for the couple’s grandchildren. “It had to be shallow,” Neil says, “because they’re just toddlers, and I didn’t want to have a wall around it. They do love to splash in there, and they help me pull the leaves out.”
In fact, family is why the retired Bormans moved to Boulder from Anacortes, Wash., two years ago. “We have one daughter in Alaska, one in Santa Fe and one in Boulder,” Cathy explains. “We’d love to be close to all of them and their families, but that’s impossible, so it simply came down to which location suited us best. In the end, we chose Boulder.”
The Wonderland Lake location suited them, too, because the home was close to their daughter’s place. “But it had some problems,” Cathy says, “like a somewhat dated interior, a cracked jetted tub and lots of issues with the front yard.”
