Creating a Landscaping Legacy at Palisades Village

Palisadian Lisa Zeder Shares the Inspiration Behind the Garden at the New Development

By JANET FARBER | Contributing Writer

On your next stroll through Palisades Village, look up—you may discover some extraordinary surprises.

“On Swarthmore, you’ll find Aristocrat pear trees that will have white blossoms in the spring,” noted Palisadian Lisa Zeder of LZ Design Group, the landscape designer hired by the Caruso team to create the gardens in the development.

“The promenade has maples, which turn beautiful red in the fall. In the park we have pink tabebuia trees—one of Caruso’s favorites—which will also bloom in the spring, along with the purple jacarandas that play into the Monument Street trees, as well as Liriodendron with yellow leaves in the fall and an inconspicuous greenish yellow tulip-shaped flower. ”

Zeder explained that Caruso’s vision was to bring an East Coast village to the West Coast. To that end, LZ Design Group was tasked with planting a wide variety of mature trees, shrubs and grasses to lend an immediate sense of permanence and time.

“We talked about the importance of it feeling like a garden that was loved and embraced,” Zeder shared. “We imagined people sitting in the park, on the grass, walking your dog at night, strollers, people of all ages. This was a driving force in the design.”

A 30-year resident of Pacific Palisades, Zeder is far from new to landscape design. Her work began several decades ago, when she went from creating her own garden, to friends’ gardens, to friends of friends’ gardens.

As her referral base grew, she enrolled in the UCLA Landscape Architecture Extension program to broaden and strengthen her design work. And then, about 12 years ago, a breakthrough launched her work into the stratosphere.

“I designed a double-lot property in Santa Monica Canyon along the Riviera golf course,” Zeder explained. “Golfers would walk by and ask what we were doing. After that, we started getting calls from those golfers as well, and our business kept growing.”

Zeder now designs estate properties up and down both coasts, as well as the United Kingdom. And then, she transplanted her over 30 years of experience into the landscape at Palisades Village.

She first was involved with Caruso when she worked on personal property for a member of the team over two-and-a-half years ago. From there, Zeder began to receive phone calls.

“First, I would get a request for some pots, then benches for cityscapes, then a call to render a submittal for them,” Zeder shared. “And at each step, we were able to meet their expectations.”

Eventually, Zeder received a call asking if she’d like to make it official and join the team.

“We are a small company, there are only five of us,” she said. “I hung up the phone and said, ‘Oh, my God.’ Inside I couldn’t have been more thrilled.”

When it came to working on Palisades Village, Zeder explained that “expectations were high.”

“The project was so amazing, we wanted to do everything we could to meet those expectations,” she shared. “At every turn, Rick was professional, friendly, extremely mannered, funny, kind, appreciative and gracious. And that type of consistent reception allows you to be a better consultant.

“When you are treated well, you want to do better than we’ve ever done. It’s also the town our kids were raised in, we had to do better than we’ve ever done.”

For Palisades Village, Zeder worked alongside Caruso, Tutor Perini and American Landscape. She shared that she drew from a particularly fond memory.

“When I was a little girl, growing up in Santa Monica, every Christmas, my mother would put out on our mantle a little Dickens Christmas village,” she said. “From a very small age, I would look up at that village on the mantle and it had very special meaning to me. I kept drawing on that memory when I’d walk through the Palisades Village in my mind.”

In order the achieve the goal Rick Caruso had in his mind for the village, Zeder needed to create a subtle feeling of the change of seasons.

“Ideally it will wake up peoples’ senses with color,” she shared. “You will see the red maples in the fall, the white pears in spring. There is a big beautiful Tipuana tipu tree that blooms yellow in summer on Palisades Village Lane, next to Vintage Grocers. We wanted to do this with the major trees, so there is something happening year round.”

The larger mature trees anchor the garden, followed by understory tress such as the Chinese fringe trees on Sunset by Amazon Books, and the peppermint willows in the paseo.

“In a world where we can’t always count on things, we hope the Village and its plantings will allow people to look forward to things, to anticipate and create memories of time,” Zeder shared. “This village is something we get to leave behind, something that will be here for generations, and for that we are truly grateful.”