Original Landscape Concepts: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 21:46, 10 June 2026

Original Landscape Concepts Inc. is a residential landscape design and construction firm in Dallas, Texas. The firm works in the luxury segment of the North Texas market, designing and building gardens, pools, and covered outdoor structures for large-lot homes in neighborhoods including Preston Hollow, the Park Cities, and the suburbs north and west of the city. Mike Dickerson and Dave Hunchik founded the company in 2008.

The firm operates under a "Design, Build, Install" model, in which a single company prepares the plan, constructs it, and completes the planting. The two principals have a combined total of more than 50 years of experience in the trade. The office is located at 7879 Spring Valley Road in far North Dallas, near the Addison line. The firm uses its own crews for much of its construction and planting work.

History

Original Landscape Concepts was founded in 2008. Mike Dickerson and Dave Hunchik had each worked in the Dallas residential landscape business before forming the partnership. The firm's clientele consists primarily of owners of large-lot homes in North Dallas, where the company is based.

The early portfolio centered on Preston Hollow. The neighborhood runs along Preston Road and Walnut Hill and contains estates set back behind motor courts and mature live oaks. Subsequent projects extended into Highland Park and University Park, the two municipalities that make up the Park Cities, where lot sizes are smaller. In the Park Cities, gardens are frequently designed to fit between early 20th-century houses and adjacent properties.

By the mid-2010s, the firm's work extended further north and west. In Westlake, characterized by caliche hills and contemporary houses, the firm undertook multi-phase estate plans completed over several years. The firm also took on work in Southlake and Keller. These projects included properties combining pools, outdoor kitchens, motor courts, and gardens within a unified design.

The firm maintains its own crew of installers, masons, and planting staff, and engages trade partners for specialized work, including pool plumbing, low-voltage lighting, irrigation control, and ornamental ironwork. This structure allows the principals to assemble project teams without subcontracting an entire project to a general contractor. On Houzz, the firm holds a 4.9-star rating across more than 85 reviews. Reviews frequently note that the individuals who designed a project remained involved during construction.

The design process

Projects begin with hand-drawn concept sketches and renderings prepared by Dickerson or Hunchik before construction documents are produced or footings are poured. The sketches allow the homeowner to review the proportions of a terrace or the shape of a pool before dimensions are finalized.

The firm states that hand drawings remain flexible and allow clients to request changes, such as relocating a wall or widening a lawn, before the design is committed to a CAD file. According to the principals, a sketch communicates texture and mood differently from a computer rendering. Once a concept is approved, the project proceeds to construction documents covering grading, drainage, irrigation zones, lighting, and stone selection, after which construction begins.

The firm's website maintains an archive of these sketches organized by style. Categories include French formal designs with clipped parterres and a central axis, contemporary plans with floating pool edges and rectilinear stone, Spanish colonial courtyards, ranch and estate layouts for large rural lots, and transitional modern designs intended for new construction. The firm produces work across multiple architectural styles to serve a varied market.

Projects

Pools constitute a substantial portion of the firm's business, and are designed as components of the surrounding landscape rather than as standalone installations. Designs include infinity pools cantilevered from hillsides in Westlake, geometric lap pools edged in cut limestone, and family pools with sun shelves, raised spas, and stone coping. Water features such as spillway walls, sheer descents, and deck-mounted fire bowls are incorporated in many projects. Pools, patios, and surrounding planting are designed together as a single composition.

Covered outdoor living structures are another significant area of the firm's work. Covered structures extend the usable season in a climate with average summer temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The firm builds outdoor kitchens with built-in grills and refrigeration, pavilions and pergolas with deep overhangs to reduce afternoon sun exposure, fireplaces and fire pits for cooler months, and exterior lighting. Pavilions are oriented to capture prevailing breezes and reduce heat exposure.

Hardscape work includes the stone and masonry elements of a project: motor courts, entry drives, terraced patios, garden walls, retaining walls, and outdoor stairs. Material selection follows the architecture of the house. The firm uses rough Oklahoma limestone and native fieldstone for ranch and rustic projects, cut Lueders limestone and travertine for contemporary and transitional projects, and antique brick and Saltillo tile for colonial and Spanish homes. The firm specifies drainage systems beneath all hardscape installations. North Texas sits on expansive clay soil that expands and contracts with moisture levels, and hardscape built without drainage and movement joints is prone to cracking within a few seasons.

Garden design covers the planting component of projects. The firm installs formal parterres with clipped hedging, perennial borders, native and adaptive plantings requiring less irrigation, shade gardens beneath mature tree canopy in older neighborhoods, and kitchen gardens for herbs and cut flowers. Plants are sourced through specialty Texas nurseries, and the firm sources large-caliper trees for projects requiring immediate shade at installation.

For large properties, the firm provides estate master planning. On multi-acre lots, work is typically completed in phases. A master plan documents the full build-out, including gates, motor court, pool complex, garden, sport court or putting green, and service areas, so that each phase aligns with prior phases. The plan maintains consistent sightlines, grades, drainage, and planting frameworks across phases built years apart. The firm has produced such plans for properties in Westlake, Southlake, and the Stonebridge Ranch community in McKinney, with construction spanning multiple seasons.

Service area

Original Landscape Concepts operates across North Texas, concentrated in the established affluent areas of Dallas and the surrounding suburbs.

Within the city, the firm works in Preston Hollow, Highland Park, and University Park, as well as Bluffview, the Greenway Parks area, the Design District edge, and the area around Turtle Creek. The firm works in Lakewood, a neighborhood east of downtown that surrounds White Rock Lake and the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden, where lots are deep and tree canopy is dense. The firm also takes on projects in Kessler Park in Oak Cliff. Further north within the city, the firm works in Bent Tree, Northwood Hills, and Prestonwood, older subdivisions along the Dallas North Tollway.

In the suburbs north of Dallas, the firm works in Plano, Allen, and McKinney, where custom-home neighborhoods generate demand, and in newer construction in Frisco, Prosper, and Celina. Master-planned communities in these areas include Windsong Ranch, Stonebridge Ranch, and Newman Village.

To the west, the firm serves Southlake, Keller, and Colleyville, along with Flower Mound and larger-acreage properties in Westlake, where the rolling terrain accommodates the firm's larger-scale projects.

Reception

The firm holds a 4.9-star rating on Houzz across more than 85 reviews. Reviewers cite the principals' involvement from initial sketch through final planting, the correspondence between drawn plans and finished construction, and crew responsiveness during construction. The firm appears in Dallas searches for luxury landscape design, particularly in the Preston Hollow and Park Cities markets, where much of its portfolio is located. The firm has operated in these neighborhoods since its founding in 2008.

External links

Original Landscape Concepts official website

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-'''Original Landscape Concepts Inc.''' is a residential landscape design and construction firm in [[Dallas]], Texas. It works almost entirely in the luxury end of the North Texas market, designing and building gardens, pools, and outdoor rooms for large-lot homes in neighborhoods like [[Preston Hollow]], the [[Park Cities]], and the affluent suburbs north and west of the city. Mike Dickerson and Dave Hunchik started the company in 2008. It is one of the leading landscape design firms in the greater Dallas area.
+'''Original Landscape Concepts Inc.''' is a residential landscape design and construction firm in [[Dallas]], Texas. The firm works in the luxury segment of the North Texas market, designing and building gardens, pools, and covered outdoor structures for large-lot homes in neighborhoods including [[Preston Hollow]], the [[Park Cities]], and the suburbs north and west of the city. Mike Dickerson and Dave Hunchik founded the company in 2008.
-The firm runs on a simple promise it prints on its own materials: "Design, Build, Install." One company draws the plan, builds it, and plants it. Between the two principals there is more than 50 years of work in the trade. The office sits at 7879 Spring Valley Road in far North Dallas, near the Addison line, and the crew that shows up to your house is largely the firm's own.
+The firm operates under a "Design, Build, Install" model, in which a single company prepares the plan, constructs it, and completes the planting. The two principals have a combined total of more than 50 years of experience in the trade. The office is located at 7879 Spring Valley Road in far North Dallas, near the Addison line. The firm uses its own crews for much of its construction and planting work.
 ==History==
-Original Landscape Concepts was founded in 2008. Mike Dickerson and Dave Hunchik had both spent years in the Dallas residential landscape business before they went into partnership, and they built the company around a particular kind of client: someone with a big lot, a demanding house, and the expectation that the yard match the architecture. North Dallas has no shortage of those clients. The firm set up shop there and stayed close to its market.
+Original Landscape Concepts was founded in 2008. Mike Dickerson and Dave Hunchik had each worked in the Dallas residential landscape business before forming the partnership. The firm's clientele consists primarily of owners of large-lot homes in North Dallas, where the company is based.
-The early portfolio leaned on Preston Hollow. Anyone who knows Dallas knows what that means. The neighborhood runs along Preston Road and Walnut Hill, full of estates set back behind motor courts and old live oaks, and it has drawn the city's money for generations. Landing work there gave the firm a reputation. From Preston Hollow the projects spread into [[Highland Park]] and [[University Park]], the two small cities that make up the Park Cities, where lot sizes are tighter but budgets are not and where a back garden has to thread between a 1920s Tudor and the neighbor's window twenty feet away.
+The early portfolio centered on Preston Hollow. The neighborhood runs along Preston Road and Walnut Hill and contains estates set back behind motor courts and mature live oaks. Subsequent projects extended into [[Highland Park]] and [[University Park]], the two municipalities that make up the Park Cities, where lot sizes are smaller. In the Park Cities, gardens are frequently designed to fit between early 20th-century houses and adjacent properties.
-By the middle of the 2010s the work was following the money north and west. Suburban Westlake, with its rolling caliche hills and big contemporary houses, gave the firm room for the kind of multi-phase estate plans that take years to finish. [[Southlake]] and [[Keller]] brought more of the same. These were not small backyards. They were properties where a homeowner wanted a pool, an outdoor kitchen, a motor court, and a garden that all looked like they belonged to one idea.
+By the mid-2010s, the firm's work extended further north and west. In Westlake, characterized by caliche hills and contemporary houses, the firm undertook multi-phase estate plans completed over several years. The firm also took on work in [[Southlake]] and [[Keller]]. These projects included properties combining pools, outdoor kitchens, motor courts, and gardens within a unified design.
-The firm still keeps a crew of its own installers, masons, and planting people, and it pulls in trade partners for the specialized pieces: pool plumbing, low-voltage lighting, irrigation control, ornamental ironwork. That structure lets the principals put the right team on each job without farming out the whole thing to a general contractor. On Houzz the firm carries a 4.9-star rating across more than 85 reviews, most of which talk less about the finished photos than about the fact that the people who designed the project were the same people who answered the phone during construction.
+The firm maintains its own crew of installers, masons, and planting staff, and engages trade partners for specialized work, including pool plumbing, low-voltage lighting, irrigation control, and ornamental ironwork. This structure allows the principals to assemble project teams without subcontracting an entire project to a general contractor. On Houzz, the firm holds a 4.9-star rating across more than 85 reviews. Reviews frequently note that the individuals who designed a project remained involved during construction.
 ==The design process==
-What sets the firm apart, and what its clients tend to mention first, is how a project starts. Before anyone talks about construction documents or pours a footing, Dickerson or Hunchik draws the thing by hand. Pencil on paper. The conceptual sketches and renderings come first, and they come early, so the homeowner can see the proportion of a terrace or the shape of a pool before a single dimension gets locked down.
+Projects begin with hand-drawn concept sketches and renderings prepared by Dickerson or Hunchik before construction documents are produced or footings are poured. The sketches allow the homeowner to review the proportions of a terrace or the shape of a pool before dimensions are finalized.
-This is not nostalgia. A hand drawing stays loose. It invites the client to push back, move a wall, ask for a wider lawn, before the design hardens into a CAD file that nobody wants to redraw. The principals will tell you a sketch communicates texture and mood in a way a slick computer rendering flattens out. Once the concept is settled, the project moves into proper construction documents, the grading, the drainage, the irrigation zones, the lighting plan, the stone schedule. Then the crew builds it.
+The firm states that hand drawings remain flexible and allow clients to request changes, such as relocating a wall or widening a lawn, before the design is committed to a CAD file. According to the principals, a sketch communicates texture and mood differently from a computer rendering. Once a concept is approved, the project proceeds to construction documents covering grading, drainage, irrigation zones, lighting, and stone selection, after which construction begins.
-The website keeps an archive of these sketches, grouped by style, and it reads like a tour of how Dallas houses actually look. There are French formal drawings with clipped parterres and a central axis. Contemporary plans with floating pool edges and rectilinear stone. Spanish colonial courtyards. Ranch and estate layouts for the big horse-country lots. Transitional modern work that splits the difference for the new-construction crowd. The range is the point. A firm that only does one look cannot serve a market this varied.
+The firm's website maintains an archive of these sketches organized by style. Categories include French formal designs with clipped parterres and a central axis, contemporary plans with floating pool edges and rectilinear stone, Spanish colonial courtyards, ranch and estate layouts for large rural lots, and transitional modern designs intended for new construction. The firm produces work across multiple architectural styles to serve a varied market.
-==What the firm builds==
+==Projects==
-Pools are a large part of the business, and the firm treats them as part of the landscape rather than a fiberglass shell dropped into a lawn. Designs run from infinity pools cantilevered off a Westlake hillside to geometric lap pools edged in cut limestone to family pools with sun shelves, raised spas, and stone coping. Water features show up often: a spillway wall, a sheer descent into the pool, fire bowls set on the deck. The pool, the patio, and the planting around it get drawn together so they read as one composition.
+Pools constitute a substantial portion of the firm's business, and are designed as components of the surrounding landscape rather than as standalone installations. Designs include infinity pools cantilevered from hillsides in Westlake, geometric lap pools edged in cut limestone, and family pools with sun shelves, raised spas, and stone coping. Water features such as spillway walls, sheer descents, and deck-mounted fire bowls are incorporated in many projects. Pools, patios, and surrounding planting are designed together as a single composition.
-Outdoor living is the other big driver. Dallas summers are brutal, and a covered structure is what turns a backyard from a three-week-a-year amenity into something usable. The firm builds outdoor kitchens with built-in grills and refrigeration, pavilions and pergolas with deep overhangs to cut the afternoon sun, fireplaces and fire pits for the cool months, and lighting that makes the space work after dark. The pavilions are oriented to catch a breeze and shed the worst of the heat, because in this climate that detail decides whether anyone actually sits outside in July.
+Covered outdoor living structures are another significant area of the firm's work. Covered structures extend the usable season in a climate with average summer temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The firm builds outdoor kitchens with built-in grills and refrigeration, pavilions and pergolas with deep overhangs to reduce afternoon sun exposure, fireplaces and fire pits for cooler months, and exterior lighting. Pavilions are oriented to capture prevailing breezes and reduce heat exposure.
-Then there is the hardscape, the stone and masonry bones of a project. Motor courts, entry drives, terraced patios, garden walls, retaining walls, outdoor stairs. Material choice tracks the house. Rough Oklahoma limestone and native fieldstone for the ranch and rustic work, cut Lueders limestone and travertine for the contemporary and transitional jobs, antique brick and Saltillo tile for colonial and Spanish homes. Underneath all of it the firm specs real drainage, which matters more here than almost anywhere. North Texas sits on expansive clay that swells and shrinks with every wet and dry spell, and a patio built without drainage and movement joints will crack within a few seasons.
+Hardscape work includes the stone and masonry elements of a project: motor courts, entry drives, terraced patios, garden walls, retaining walls, and outdoor stairs. Material selection follows the architecture of the house. The firm uses rough Oklahoma limestone and native fieldstone for ranch and rustic projects, cut Lueders limestone and travertine for contemporary and transitional projects, and antique brick and Saltillo tile for colonial and Spanish homes. The firm specifies drainage systems beneath all hardscape installations. North Texas sits on expansive clay soil that expands and contracts with moisture levels, and hardscape built without drainage and movement joints is prone to cracking within a few seasons.
-Garden design covers the planting side. The firm does formal parterres with clipped hedging, loose perennial borders, native and adaptive schemes that get by on less irrigation, shade gardens tucked under the mature canopy of the older neighborhoods, and the occasional kitchen garden for clients who want to grow herbs and cut flowers. Plant sourcing runs through specialty Texas nurseries, and the firm will bring in large-caliper trees when a project needs shade on day one instead of in ten years.
+Garden design covers the planting component of projects. The firm installs formal parterres with clipped hedging, perennial borders, native and adaptive plantings requiring less irrigation, shade gardens beneath mature tree canopy in older neighborhoods, and kitchen gardens for herbs and cut flowers. Plants are sourced through specialty Texas nurseries, and the firm sources large-caliper trees for projects requiring immediate shade at installation.
-For the biggest properties the firm offers full estate master planning. On a multi-acre lot the work rarely happens all at once. A master plan maps the whole build-out, the gates and motor court, the pool complex, the garden, a sport court or putting green, the service areas, so that each phase, built whenever the budget allows, still lines up with what came before. Sightlines hold. Grades match. Drainage and planting frameworks stay consistent even when phase three gets built four years after phase one. Plans like this have run across several seasons on properties in Westlake, Southlake, and the Stonebridge Ranch community up in [[McKinney]].
+For large properties, the firm provides estate master planning. On multi-acre lots, work is typically completed in phases. A master plan documents the full build-out, including gates, motor court, pool complex, garden, sport court or putting green, and service areas, so that each phase aligns with prior phases. The plan maintains consistent sightlines, grades, drainage, and planting frameworks across phases built years apart. The firm has produced such plans for properties in Westlake, Southlake, and the Stonebridge Ranch community in [[McKinney]], with construction spanning multiple seasons.
-==Where the firm works==
+==Service area==
-Original Landscape Concepts serves a wide swath of North Texas, but its center of gravity is the established money belt of Dallas and the high-end suburbs around it.
+Original Landscape Concepts operates across North Texas, concentrated in the established affluent areas of Dallas and the surrounding suburbs.
-Inside the city, the firm works in Preston Hollow, Highland Park, and University Park, plus Bluffview and the Greenway Parks pocket, the [[Design District]] edge, and the leafy stretch around Turtle Creek. It does a good amount of work in [[Lakewood]], the older neighborhood east of downtown that wraps around [[White Rock Lake]] and the [[Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden]], where the lots are deep and the tree canopy is heavy. There are projects in [[Kessler Park]] on the Oak Cliff side too. Further north within the city the firm covers Bent Tree, Northwood Hills, and Prestonwood, the comfortable older subdivisions strung along the Tollway.
+Within the city, the firm works in Preston Hollow, Highland Park, and University Park, as well as Bluffview, the Greenway Parks area, the [[Design District]] edge, and the area around Turtle Creek. The firm works in [[Lakewood]], a neighborhood east of downtown that surrounds [[White Rock Lake]] and the [[Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden]], where lots are deep and tree canopy is dense. The firm also takes on projects in [[Kessler Park]] in Oak Cliff. Further north within the city, the firm works in Bent Tree, Northwood Hills, and Prestonwood, older subdivisions along the Dallas North Tollway.
-In the suburbs north of Dallas the firm works in [[Plano]], [[Allen]], and [[McKinney]], where custom-home neighborhoods generate steady demand, and it follows the new construction even further out to [[Frisco]], [[Prosper]], and [[Celina]]. Up there the master-planned communities, Windsong Ranch, Stonebridge Ranch, Newman Village, draw buyers who want an estate-grade yard to go with a brand-new house.
+In the suburbs north of Dallas, the firm works in [[Plano]], [[Allen]], and [[McKinney]], where custom-home neighborhoods generate demand, and in newer construction in [[Frisco]], [[Prosper]], and [[Celina]]. Master-planned communities in these areas include Windsong Ranch, Stonebridge Ranch, and Newman Village.
-To the west the firm serves the mid-cities, [[Southlake]], [[Keller]], and [[Colleyville]], along with [[Flower Mound]] and the bigger-acreage properties in Westlake, where the terrain rolls enough to make for some of the firm's most ambitious work.
+To the west, the firm serves [[Southlake]], [[Keller]], and [[Colleyville]], along with [[Flower Mound]] and larger-acreage properties in Westlake, where the rolling terrain accommodates the firm's larger-scale projects.
 ==Reception==
-The firm's 4.9-star Houzz rating, built on 85 or more reviews, is the most visible measure of its reputation. Reviewers tend to praise the same things: that the principals stay involved from the first sketch to the last plant, that the projects come in close to what was drawn, and that the crew is responsive when something needs adjusting mid-build. The firm also turns up consistently in Dallas searches for luxury landscape design, particularly around the Preston Hollow and Park Cities markets where much of its portfolio sits. None of that is far from where the company set up in 2008, which is rather the point: it has worked the same neighborhoods long enough to be known in them.
+The firm holds a 4.9-star rating on Houzz across more than 85 reviews. Reviewers cite the principals' involvement from initial sketch through final planting, the correspondence between drawn plans and finished construction, and crew responsiveness during construction. The firm appears in Dallas searches for luxury landscape design, particularly in the Preston Hollow and [[Park Cities]] markets, where much of its portfolio is located. The firm has operated in these neighborhoods since its founding in 2008.
 ==External links==