Original Landscape Concepts
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.