All That’s Missing Is Sand

Living “at the beach” is a relative term. Few who dwell by the coast have ocean views. More often, those in beach towns stare out at walls, phone lines and fences.

But Sean Knibb, a landscape designer, has managed to bring the beach to his house, a few blocks from the Venice boardwalk. He bought the 1920s cottage three years ago for its proximity to the Pacific and for its lot, which at 30 feet by 95 feet is deep for the neighborhood. The house sits at the back of the property, and the garden in front is planted with shrubs and grasses that evoke sand dunes.

Knibb was born in Jamaica, where his grandparents were florists and flower growers, and he grew up in Playa del Rey and Venice. Although he studied furniture design at Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design, he gave it up to do landscaping. His work combines a modernist approach--simple, often geometric layouts and graphic masses of a few plants--with an appreciation for fine textures and unusual specimens.

His style is evident in his own garden, which he first planted with wheat after removing the lawn. “That lasted four months,” he says. “I loved the idea--my urban life in a wheat field--but it very quickly got monotonous.”

Once he nixed the wheat, he laid a grid and sketched in blocks of plants, weaving together ‘Cape Cod’ roses and frilly Queen Anne’s lace as accents. He introduced silver, a seaside color, in banks of artemisia and calocephalus, and added bluer tones with crisp native blue rye grass and softer blue oat grass. Other grasses, some variegated, some green, add to the overall sense of movement, which was one of Knibb’s goals. “The wheat alone was boring,” he says. “But I wanted plants that would toss like that. You’d see them from a window and you’d want to go outside.”

The garden path, which leads to his glass front doors, plays a similar role, inviting the eye to consider unexpected elements such as weeping cedars, artichokes and an oval lawn of tightly clipped grass planted within a square of deeper grass. The gold gravel path, edged with succulents and clam shells, has the warmth of sand but is more practical. The cedars stand up to the coastal wind, and the artichokes and other plants--such as the bell-flowered angel’s fishing rod--are a playful surprise. The oval lawn, planted with grass used for golf course putting greens, grabs the eye and is easier on the feet than the ‘Marathon’ that surrounds it.

As many as 60 people have crowded into Knibb’s retreat to talk, eat and loll in the “plunge” pool, which is equipped with spa jets. “The sound of water is important,” Knibb says, “and so is the visual connection to the ocean. Water. Shells. Movement. Music. When you come here, you should really feel you’re almost walking on the beach.”

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Resource Guide

Knibb Design Corp., Brentwood, (310) 440-0101.