Alexander Champagne Landscape Design

We stumbled on Alex (and his brother Xavier) when we were researching new landscape maintenance firms (our old one had more than worn out their welcome!). I had several companies give me bids for maintenance and for a redesign on the upper front planting area of our home in the Sunset Strip/​Hollywood Hills area. This company was by far the most impressive. Alex and Xavier showed up on a weekend to accommodate my husband’s busy schedule and it was clear they had taken a lot of time to think through what our property needed, presented a coherent plan to tackle in stages, and they were insanely knowledgeable about plants, architectural styles etc.
My husband is a production designer and he was very impressed with their vision. I am a perfectionist and I couldn’t be more pleased with the execution. We wound up hiring them for maintenance and took their 4 step plan to heart and started budgeting for it. We’ve completed all of it now (over about 1 ½ years), and the results are fantastic. I guarantee they have paid for themselves with the home’s curb appeal alone. Seriously. Every change we made had neighbors stopping by to complement the work and ask for their contact info. It is that impressive. And we love the results. If I had more room, I would go into great detail on each and every wise decision they made but I would go on forever. For one part of the project, I saved money by just trusting them to do what they felt was right and didn’t do a plan and it was pure genius what they did. No plan!
When Alex originally told us that he wanted to enhance our house and make it into a proper «estate» I almost laughed. I hadn’t really thought of it that way, although it is a pretty nice view house in a great area. But he was right – our house looks so much more majestic than I ever thought possible. Thank goodness we put our trust into them. Also, we are delighted with the maintenance service too!
While they never even made this a part of their pitch, I found out over the course of working with them that they both hold Masters in Landscape Architecture degrees from Cornell (in addition to higher ed degrees from France, where they are from). Alex was valedictorian of his class. They are super smart, their English is great (although I speak some French, so it’s been fun to practice) and, here is the kicker – they are very reasonably priced. I would say the value rating for their work is out of this world. If we ever sell, I would use them again in a heartbeat. They are also just two really nice, interesting, talented guys. Do yourself a favor and use them for your next project… I can say this now since I have redone my yard and no longer need to monopolize their time!

After years of having a large backyard with lawn, I was tired of the commitment maintaining a green lush lawn took, let alone the water bill. After watching the neighbor redesign a blank canvas of a yard without lawn, I finally convinced the Mrs. that we could do without in the back yard.
Alex helped design my ideas in my mind and put it on paper. We wanted to create a yard that would allow us to add on in the future without losing the lot size, give us extreme privacy with large tall hedges, many places to sit since we cook 75% of the time outside and make the yard appear larger than it was.
As an avid gardener, I wanted to have a space dedicated to my veggies and future fruit orchard and the demanding wife wanted a play area for the kids. While this posed a challenge to Alex as I gave him carte blanche on the design based on my ideas and vision, he pulled it off superbly… even if I drove him mad with changes and pressure to finish our job while working on others being that we are neighbors.
He split the yard into sections, using hedges to separate the spaces giving us sitting areas, defined spaces with lots of shrubs, trees and plants while still making the yard feel HUGE! I have received so many compliments on the space, we have great anticipation for the spring this year and our fruit orchard which consists of Mexicola Avocado, Oro Grande Grapefruit, Ruby Supreme Guava, White Turnbull Guava, Garden Prince Almond, Thornless Mexican Lime, Meyer Lemon, Cotn Candy Aprium, Flavor Delite Aprium, Nectaplum and Kishuyu Mandarin orange. Note, the fruit trees were all purchased from Alex @ Papaya Tree Nursery. Watching two Alex’s, both passionate about their craft was fun to say the least.
The yard is filling in quickly and the hedges are growing well helping to define each space. We couldn’t be happier, just wish the weather would improve soon and Spring come so we can enjoy the new season! Definitely not cheap, but worth every penny!

The Champagne brothers literally created a magical new front and back gardens for my house in Santa Monica. If you come by 603, 18^th Street, you will understand what I mean. They are magicians, as far as I am concerned.