The McNulty Company hired HKGi to design a site plan for an 87-acre estate property along the shore of Gem Lake. Challenges faced by the landscape architect centered around placement of new homes within the various landscape settings in and around the property. Larger home sites are nestled within the mature wooded areas along the lake and within a vast pine grove, while smaller lots occupy the pastoral sites throughout the eastern meadow and along the golf course to the north. Building placement for each lot was identified to both take advantage of prime building sites, and positioned to minimizing impacts to adjacent lots in the development and the surrounding uses.
The design also focused on maintaining an existing view corridor from the main estate to the lake thru a conservation easement of protected open space. Throughout the rest of the site, substantial tree and wetland preservation occurred by matching the road network to the rise and fall of the topography creating minimal grading and meandering the loop road around wetlands and key specimen trees, maintaining the intrinsic character of the property.