Urban farmstead thrives at Pacific Beach home

By Mary James Special to the U-T6:29 p.m.Aug. 22, 2014Updated6:29 p.m.

Tara and Jason Brown transformed their Pacific Beach home into a modern urban farm, with raised beds for vegetables and fruit trees.

Tara and Jason Brown had great expectations for the new garden around their recently remodeled Pacific Beach home. Yes, it would be water-wise and eco-sound. But the couple, both doctors, also envisioned an urban farmstead where they and their two kids could gather just-laid eggs, snack on strawberries and harvest fruits and veggies for family meals.

We wanted to create this natural world for our children, says Tara. We wanted to grow our own food and be as green as possible. And we wanted a clean, modern look to match our homes interiors.

A Google search and cold call united the Browns with Navid Mostatabi, a landscape architect who lived nearby and whose award-winning design-build firm, Envision Landscape Studio, specializes in the stylish, sustainable design the couple had in mind.

Over eight months, their inspired partnership transformed the sloped corner lot into a series of outdoor rooms that include the all-organic growing grounds as well as a solar-heated spa-plunge pool, a Modern Shed prefab exercise room and state-of-the-art rainwater collection.

Plants, many in Taras favorite shades of orange, chartreuse and red-burgundy, range from fruit trees to dramatic ornamental grasses, papyrus and bamboo. Decomposed granite, gravel, concrete and other eco-minded materials predominate; even the colorful Loll Design patio furniture is made of recycled milk jugs.

Earlier this summer, the new landscape was honored with the top prize in the annual Beautification Awards Program of the California Landscape Contractors Association, San Diego chapter.

Tara Brown keeps her compost in a metal box with a heavy lid in the garden. Peggy Peattie / U-T San Diego

To get the makeover under way, vegetation and hardscape neglected for 50 years had to be hauled away. Walls were crumbling and buckling. The deck was rotting and termite-ridden. There was no fencing, only these gross, half-dead oleanders, Tara recalls. We never went outside. It was a wasteland.

Continue reading here:
Urban farmstead thrives at Pacific Beach home