An Inside Look at Design Process, and the Reverence for the Home, From Landscape Architect Ed Hollander

Ed Hollander is ready for his closeup.

The renowned landscape architect, who makes his home in Sag Harbor, could be coming to television screens soon, as part of a show called “Design Secrets With Ed Hollander.”

His firm, Hollander Design, has done residential and commercial projects for big names and high end clients around the world, but he has a special place in his heart for the work he does in people’s private residences. The two pilot episodes of the show are centered around that passion for the evocative concept of home.

Hollander takes his work and the needs and desires of his clients seriously, but he approaches his work with a sense of playfulness, and a touch of self-deprecating humor when speaking about his impressive resume and legacy after more than three decades in the business.

“The only question is who will play me on TV, Brad Pitt or George Clooney,” he quipped during a recent interview. “They’re fighting for the role right now.”

Hollander will be playing himself, of course, in the show which, if picked up, will air on PBS either in the fall or early next spring, he said. It would be part of a series put on by the Institute of Classical Architecture and Arts called “Design Masters.”

The pilots feature Hollander walking through properties where he has done the landscape design, along with the primary architect of the home, and discussing what design approach was taken and why, inspiration, and other “inside baseball,” so to speak, of the different phases of the project and how they completed the work.

An inside look at Hollander’s process and genius, particularly as it relates to his residential work, is provided by his new book, “The Landscape of Home: In the Country, By the Sea, In the City,” which showcases several Hollander Design projects, put out by Rizzoli, the premier publisher of large, hardcover illustrated books on architecture.

It’s the third book to focus on Hollander and the firm, but the first to focus specifically on the home. Hollander spoke about that significance, and why he thinks the book has received so much praise and accolades since its release in March of this year.

“The concept of home changed so dramatically during COVID, especially on the East End,” he said. “Home has as much emotional meaning as it does physical meaning. We wanted to show different types of homes and styles — some are modern, some are traditional, some are more formal. It gives a flavor of the different ways people can express who they are through landscapes associated with their homes.”

A common refrain for Hollander is the idea of a kind of magic that can be created through thoughtful landscape design at a home. He speaks passionately of the power that lies in creating a space where people can “be with kids, friends, grandkids, swimming, playing tennis, smelling flowers, watching butterflies, admiring honeybees, picking snap peas and cherry tomatoes and raspberries, and cooking with families,” he said breezily, with a kind of reverence for just how special it is to create that kind of environment.

Hollander said he saw a “paradigm shift” during the pandemic in the “psycho-emotional” relationship homeowners have to their landscapes, and said he still hears from clients who are deeply appreciative of his work and how it transformed their idea of home, which took on a new meaning as a space of safety and security during the pandemic.

In speaking about his creative process when it comes to designing landscapes for private residences, Hollander said he always looks at a project with “three sets of eyes.”

“There’s the natural ecology,” he started. “Are you in the Northwest Woods or near farms in Sagaponack? Having an intimate understanding of the natural ecology is step one. Then you look at the architectural quality of the house; how does the inside/outside flow work? And then there’s the human ecology — who are these people? Once you understand all that, then the property becomes a bit of a canvas. You’re laying it out collaboratively with builders and architects. It’s a collaborative process that involves a lot of people.”

Hollander said that he was very happy with the book’s writer, Judith Nasatir, remarking that in addition to bonding with her over a shared love of the New York Yankees, he felt confident she had the right kind of voice to make the book bring his ideas and concepts to life.

“It’s not all about me,” he said. “There are 40 of us in the firm, and we all share in the creation of this. I wanted the book to be accessible, and not steeped in architectural jargon.”

Understanding Hollander’s roots and back story in the business makes it clear why he felt that way.

He grew up in Manhattan — “a hotbed for landscapers,” he joked — and was a history major when he enrolled in Vassar College in the mid 1970s. He took a horticulture class as an elective, which, he said, elevated him from being the “worst student in the history of Vassar to only a mediocre student.”

A horticulture professor, Sven Swart, helped cultivate (no pun intended) his love for trees and plants, and before long he could identify all the trees on campus, which he said had its advantages.

“Girls thought it was pretty cool,” he said.

He spent time at the New York Botanical Gardens, where he preferred bending the ear of the people who worked there and tended the gardens rather than professors. Hollander ultimately ended up at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was influenced by Ian McHarg, who wrote “Design With Nature,” a sort of manifesto that was revolutionary at the time for the way it blended and drew connections between design concepts and ecology, and environmental stewardship. Hollander described McHarg, who died in 2001, as a “Scottish Bible-thumping, cigar-smoking, drinking, apostle for the planet.”

Hollander meandered his way through three different schools before graduating from Penn and then starting his firm in 1991. And 32 years later, Hollander Design was named among the top 100 architecture and landscape architecture firms in the country.

“It’s hard to believe,” he said. “You don’t ever think, ‘I’m someone you should be impressed with,’ but you get these kinds of accolades and go, ‘Oh, we’re pretty good.’ It’s interesting to look back and see all the work and projects, and where we are today.”

The sense of playfulness and almost childlike wonder and reverence for the work he does seems to have carried Hollander through his career. He has succeeded with a blend of talent and hard work, but also by the pure and simple fact that he has fun doing what he does.

In more recent years, a deep love for the Village of Sag Harbor has also been a driving force, adding to Hollander’s desire to keep on working for many more years, even though many people his age are thinking about retirement. He has a different perspective.

“I’m rapidly approaching middle age, which I define as 70,” he dead-panned.

Hollander said he’s enjoyed the opportunity to contribute his expertise to many projects in the village, such as the restoration of the Oakland Cemetery, the redesign of Long Wharf and Steinbeck Park, and a project to create a tree master plan at Mashashimuet Park.

The last chapter of “The Landscape of Home” is devoted to Sag Harbor, and he has spoken of his desire to become, as he describes it, “the modern, much less wealthy version of Mrs. Sage,” a reference to Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage, the 1800s-era benefactor of the village who gifted Mashashimuet Park to the town.

“If you think about what makes Sag Harbor special, it’s the architecture, the spaces and streets, the funkiness,” he said. “Long Wharf, Mashashimuet Park, all the spaces that people come to be together. When you walk downtown in Sag Harbor, it takes 20 minutes because you’re saying hello to so many people.”

In short, it’s a home.