Landscape lighting design in Los Gatos

Los Gatos runs from walkable blocks of Victorians and craftsman houses near the town center up into oak-covered hills where the streets narrow and the views open. The two halves of town need different lighting, and we design for both.

Near town, the lots are close-set and the houses have faces worth lighting. A Victorian porch, a craftsman gable, a picket line along the sidewalk. These gardens are small enough that a handful of fixtures is the whole design, which raises the standard for each one: one small uplight in the street tree, soft light at the porch, a marked walk, done. On close lots the neighbors are a first-order design constraint. Light that drifts into the bedroom window ten feet over the fence is a failure however good it looks from the sidewalk, so we keep beams tight and sources shielded. The mechanics are in dark-sky lighting at home.

In the hills, above Highway 9 and along the canyon roads toward the summit, the parcels grow and tip. Terraced gardens, long stair runs, decks looking north over the valley floor. Steps and grade changes dominate the safety side of the work here, and we light them low and consistently, because a missed tread on a hillside stair is a serious matter. The view side asks for discipline of a different kind: from a deck at night, the valley is a field of light, and the garden below reads best when it is barely lit at all. A few warm moments in the foreground, then darkness, then the valley. Adding more light to the garden flattens all three.

The oak woodland that gives the town its name is the through line. Coast live oaks lean over drives and terraces all across the hillsides, and lighting one well, softly, from below, off to one side, is frequently the best money on the property. Our technique is written out in uplighting oaks and natives.

We design the lighting and document it fully. Your installer, or one we can recommend, builds it. The service is under landscape lighting design.