Barrington homeowners tend to know exactly what they don’t want: a patio that looks like it came from a subdivision catalog. ZGreen Landscape designs and builds custom paver and natural-looking hardscape, retaining walls, outdoor kitchens, fire features and full planting plans for homes in the village. Our shop is in Elgin, about 20 minutes west.
Designing around old houses and older trees
The village sits across the Cook and Lake county line, and its core is old. Barrington set up a Historic Preservation Overlay District in 2001 to protect a concentration of late-1800s Victorian, Gothic and Queen Anne houses near downtown, where Northwest Highway, Hough Street and Lake Cook Road come together. The Octagon House, built around 1860, is on the National Register.
Barrington has also been a Tree City USA community since 1986, and you can see it. Many streets have a full canopy. For a landscape project, those trees are a gift and a constraint at the same time.
Shade limits what will grow in a front bed. Big roots sit right where you’d want to run a walkway or dig a patio base. And the tree itself can be damaged if an excavator cuts through the wrong side of it. We map the large trees on your property before we draw anything, keep heavy digging outside their critical root zones where we can, and adjust the patio shape or elevation when we can’t. Sometimes a patio floats a few inches higher to avoid cutting roots, with a step or seat wall to make up the difference.
On the older homes, we also pay attention to scale and material. A tumbled clay-look paver or a natural stone wall usually sits better next to a 19th-century house than a bright, machine-edged block.
Newer homes and bigger lots
Not every Barrington property is a Victorian on a tree-lined block. Outside the historic core you’ll find mid-century homes and later houses on larger lots, some backing up to wooded or open land. These properties give us room to plan a real outdoor living area: a main patio, a separate fire pit space, lighting along the path between them, and plantings that tie it to the woods behind.
Bigger lots also raise practical questions we sort out early. How does a skid steer reach the backyard without chewing up the side lawn? Where can pallets of stone sit for two weeks? Where does the excavated clay go? Answering those before the build keeps the rest of your property in good shape.
The work we do in Barrington
- Hardscape design and build: multi-level patios, walkways, steps and garden walls, planned as one project.
- Paver and brick installation for patios, front walks and driveways, including tumbled and historic-looking pavers.
- Outdoor kitchens with grill islands, counters and bar seating.
- Fire pits and outdoor fireplaces. A fireplace can double as a privacy screen on a tighter in-town lot.
- Retaining walls for grade changes and raised beds.
- Landscape design and installation, with an emphasis on shade-tolerant plantings under mature trees.
- Landscape lighting for walks, steps and tree canopies.
Building for Barrington ground
Barrington is surrounded by wetland and open space. Cuba Marsh Forest Preserve, a 782-acre marsh run by the Lake County Forest Preserves, is just outside the village. That tells you something about the area: some low spots hold water, and the clay soil under most yards drains slowly.
For every patio and walk, we dig out to firm subsoil, lay a compacted gravel base, and slope the finished surface so water runs away from the house and off the paving. On wetter lots we may deepen the base or raise the patio slightly. Retaining walls go in with clean stone behind them and a path for water to exit, because wet clay pushes hard against a wall, and freeze–thaw cycles make that pressure worse every winter.
Where your drive or front walk meets the street, we plan for road salt and plow damage. We also plan the schedule around the build season, which runs roughly April through November in northern Illinois.
Requirements vary by village, and a property inside the historic overlay may have extra steps. We confirm what’s needed before we build.
Why homeowners here hire ZGreen
Over 25-plus years, we’ve finished more than 150 projects. Our Google rating is 5.0 stars, and there’s more on our reviews page. Most of each job is handled by our own in-house crew: site prep, base, stone, plants. You talk to our designers first, get a custom design and a detailed proposal, and then we build it.
Questions from Barrington homeowners
Will a new patio hurt the big oak in my backyard?
It shouldn’t if it’s planned correctly. We locate large trees first and keep deep excavation out of their root zones where possible. When a patio has to come close, we change its shape or height instead of cutting major roots.
Can you match pavers to an older house near downtown?
Yes. Tumbled pavers, clay brick and natural stone all look at home next to older architecture. We bring samples to the site so you can see them against your house before deciding.
Do you build outdoor kitchens on existing patios?
Sometimes. It depends on whether the existing base can carry the weight of a kitchen island. If it can’t, we usually rebuild that section of the patio as part of the project.
What does a project like this cost?
That depends on size, materials and site conditions like trees and slope. Our paver patio cost and retaining wall cost guides explain the main factors. You get a firm proposal after the design.
We also work in North Barrington, Inverness and Schaumburg.
Call 224-508-0252 or request your free estimate, and we’ll reply within 24 hours.