Landscape Design Santa Cruz

Margaret Grace

Margie Grace, founder and lead designer of Grace Design Associates, Inc., is a landscape designer and a licensed landscape contractor. An avid traveler and perpetual student of gardens, she has made her own garden in Spain, Australia and New Zealand over the past three decades. Margie currently gardens in Santa Barbara. She prides herself on bringing the values of old world craftsmanship and a sophisticated design sense to her work on gardens, large and small, residential and commercial.

Margie's formal training is in the life and earth sciences. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in biology with a minor in geology, awarded in 1981 from the University of California at Santa Cruz. Margie has also studied landscape design and illustration extensively at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Her diverse education and experience foster a unique, well-rounded approach to design. She collaborates closely with clients and artisans, creating projects in a wide range of design genres. Rather than a stylized approach to design, Margie strives to create projects that have the potential to impact people's daily experience of the world and provide value to clients, the community and the environment.

Committed to sustainable development, Margie has served as the President of the Green Building Alliance for the past four years, actively collaborating with many other green professionals in the Santa Barbara community. Her work on Victoria Garden Mews, a multi-family infill project, was the first project worldwide to achieve 2-star Sustainable SITES Initiative certification for a residential project (2013).

Company Profile

Grace Design Associates, Inc. is an award-winning, full service landscape firm with over twenty-five years of experience designing and building world-class gardens. Company founder and lead designer Margie Grace is the winner of the 2009 International Landscape Designer of the Year Award, the top honor in the field.

Grace Design's forté is distinctive design executed with the values of old world craftsmanship. Working in a wide range of design styles and budgets, the company creates gardens that connect with the unique character of the site, sit seamlessly in the environment, blend harmoniously with the architecture and reflect the client's aesthetic.

Every garden is custom-designed and custom-built. For each project, be it large or small, all materials - including plants, trees, stone, fountains, statuary, garden furniture, and garden accessories - are hand-selected by the firm's designers from the top growers and suppliers in the west. The result is a one-of-a-kind garden perfectly tailored to the client, the architecture, the site and the environment.

Grace Design Associates gardens have been built throughout Southern California, and increasingly throughout the Southwest, including the Pacific Northwest, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Grace Design Associates is a leader in green design and sustainable construction methodologies and practices. Green before green was fashionable, the firm has pioneered the integrated team approach, working from the outset of the project with client, architect, interior designer, general contractor, engineers, specialized trades and other design and construction professionals. By working together from project inception through completion and ongoing maintenance, the client can be assured that the project has a green-friendly footprint, considers local architecture and client lifestyle, and maximizes building equipment, materials and other resources.

Grace Design Associates has been featured on HGTV's, "Landscapers' Challenge" and Discovery Channel's sustainable design show "Greenovate". ABC's reality show "Momma's Boys" was filmed at a coastal Santa Barbara estate with gardens designed and built by the firm. Grace Design Associates' work has also appeared in numerous regional and national publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Traditional Home, Better Homes and Gardens, Garden Design, Sunset, California Homes, Garden Ideas, California Home + Design, Santa Barbara Seasons and Ventura Life & Style.