MintScapes·Issue 01·NYC & the tri-state

Your urban oasis,
made by hand.

A small studio for the parts of your building that live outside. Terraces. Backyards. Courtyards. Outdoor kitchens. Pergolas. Plantings. Designed and built one space at a time.

Brownstone backyard at twilight with stone pavers, fire pit, and string lights

Cover

Brownstone backyard, twilight.

Read the issue
Brownstone backyard with horizontal IPE wood fence and a dining setup at twilight
MintScapes·Backyards

Quiet, behind the brownstone.

Most NYC backyards get four hours of sun. The walls, the pavers, and the lines of the room all get shaped around that fact.

The space between your back door and the property line, made livable. IPE privacy walls that warm the sightlines from the building next door. Porcelain or bluestone underfoot. Built-in beds and planters sized to whatever planting plan you bring us — or we'll source one for you if you'd rather not think about it. A dining table that fits the family, not the catalog.

Rooftop terrace with white sectional seating, green dining chairs, low pergola structure, and skyline view
MintScapes·Rooftops

Above the noise.

Each paver lifts. Planters scaled to the load. Lighting and irrigation routed under the deck. What you see is what we built; what's underneath stays accessible.

Wide rooftops with sightlines into the city. Hardwood decking laid in herringbone. White sectionals and planters that survive the wind. A low pergola for the August sun. The kind of terrace that turns a rooftop from a thing you walk on into a place you live.

Outdoor kitchen and bar under a louvered pergola, lit at dusk with downlights and IPE wood walls
MintScapes·Outdoor kitchens

A kitchen that lives outside.

Plumbing, gas, and electrical run before the hardscape goes down. So the kitchen looks built-in, because it is.

Built-in grills, refrigeration, sinks, prep counters, and the cabinetry to hide the rest. Stone counters that survive the weather. IPE or marine-grade frames, lit from inside the louvered roof when the sun goes down. Built around the way you actually cook outside, not the way a showroom looks.

Rooftop with paver-and-grass grid floor and a black steel pergola frame
MintScapes·Pergolas & structures

The frame around the room.

Material chosen for the exposure. Steel for the rooftop, cedar for the yard, IPE when the budget will hold it.

Pergolas, trellises, privacy screens, custom seating, planter walls, fire features. Built in cedar, IPE, or powder-coated aluminum and steel. Sized to the space. Load-checked for NYC wind by our partner shops. The structure that takes a backyard or rooftop from a place to a room.

Brownstone backyard at twilight with stone pavers, fire pit, and string lights
Interlude·After hours

When the city goes quiet, the yard goes long.

String lights between the IPE walls, low spots in the planters, the fire pit doing what fire does. The work is in the wiring you don’t see.

How we work

Three steps to your
urban oasis.

Scale, building approvals, and what the seasons let us plant when all set the pace. The notes beside each step are the things we put on the table early.

  1. 01

    Walk-through

    We meet you at the space. Measure it, read the light, talk through what you want. You leave with a rough budget range and a sense of what's possible.

    A brownstone backyard often gets four hours of direct sun, sometimes less. We map it before we plan a single bed.

  2. 02

    Design

    Plan drawings, material specs, palette, lighting, irrigation. When it helps, we put together 3D renderings, walkthroughs, and material sample boards so what you picture and what we're about to build line up before anyone breaks ground. Two rounds of revisions are normal. If you already have drawings from your architect or designer, we'll build to those instead. Final budget locks in once design is signed off.

    Rooftop work means structural review and, often, DOB. We coordinate with your building's engineer; we don't replace them.

  3. 03

    Build

    Install on-site. Hardscape first, then plantings and systems. We sequence around your building's access rules. Care plans are available afterward, only if you want them.

    Year one is on us. After that, most clients keep us on a seasonal plan: spring open, summer check, fall close.

Have an oasis in mind?
Let’s walk it.

Tell us where it is and what you’re hoping for. We’ll come look. Most projects start with a 30-minute walk-through and a rough budget the same week.