Quartier's Designs is two people in Castle Rock: a designer trained in the Loire Valley, and a native Coloradan who keeps every project moving. We focus on design, and we stay with you long after the drawings are delivered.
From Angers, in France's Loire Valley — a region that treats gardens as architecture, and a town known for the schools that teach it. A degree in landscape design and construction, ten years designing and building across France, and twenty-plus years in the field all told.
On the Front Range since 2015, he brought a European sense of structure to Colorado's hard ground — clay soil, high sun, −20°F winters and 6,200 feet of elevation. Every plan starts the same way: standing on the property, reading the grade and the light, before drawing a line.
He works in English and French.
A formal degree in landscape design and construction, in a region whose gardens have been drawn to a plan for four hundred years. Structure first, planting second — an order of operations that never left him.
Not only drawing. Years of actually setting stone and moving earth, which is why the drawings account for how things get built rather than only how they look.
A different climate entirely — thin air, brutal sun, expansive clay, and winters that kill anything specified carelessly. Years spent learning which European instincts survive at altitude and which have to be thrown away.
A studio focused on design, deliberately: drawings any good builder can execute, support while the project is built, and a network of trusted builders to recommend, for homeowners who want the plan right before the digging starts.
A native Coloradan, Terese runs the front of the studio — the first voice you'll hear, and the one keeping every project moving.
She also writes most of the journal: the notes on clay soil, water-wise planting, HOA covenants and building at altitude that make this a studio with a point of view, not just a portfolio.
If you email the office, she's who answers — usually the same day.
Like Jean-Michel, she speaks English and French, so the studio works in either language.
With no crew to keep busy and no supplier we're obligated to work with, every plan is drawn for what's best for your property. It's yours to build with the builder you choose, and we're happy to recommend one suited to your project.
Twenty years of drawings behind every plan, and a European eye for structure. Nothing here is a photo run through an app — it starts on your ground, with your grade and your light.
Zone 5, −20°F winters, 300 days of sun, expansive clay and wind that strips an unprotected planting by its second season. Every species and every detail is chosen for that, not for a catalogue.
Douglas County boards each have their own covenants and their own temperament. We draw to the submittal requirements of yours — the right sheets, the right scale, the right plant list.
We don't design and disappear. During construction we're reachable for questions, required changes and advice when something unexpected comes up, and when one of our referral partners builds your project, we visit the site at key points.
Ten years of setting stone before ever drawing full-time. The plans account for how the work is actually done — which is why builders can price them without a dozen phone calls.
Castle Rock, Castle Pines, Parker, Lone Tree, Franktown, Highlands Ranch, Littleton, Larkspur, Elizabeth, Lakewood, Denver, Aurora and Cherry Creek.
Further afield is possible for larger properties — ask, and we'll tell you honestly whether the travel makes sense for the size of the project.
Clay soil and what it does to a root ball. Firewise planting and defensible space. What a Douglas County HOA board actually looks for. How to budget a build in phases without wasting the first one.
Start with a free consultation — we'll walk your property and tell you honestly what it needs.