Eric Nagelmann is one of the best landscape designers in the world.
He grew up poor in Santa Barbara, where he started taking care of his parents’ garden. Though he never finished high school, Eric was taken under the wing of renowned artist and landscape designer Jack Henderson Baker, who became an inspiration. Baker hired Eric for $1.50 an hour to work on gardens, and that’s where his imagination would go wild.
Among other creative techniques, Eric started mixing tropical plants with succulents, and his reputation steadily grew. Eventually, he was introduced to a Montecito crowd that included Dame Judith Anderson, Margaret Mallory, Wright Ludington, and Paige Rense, the former editor of Architectural Digest who hired Eric to design three of her houses.