California drought restrictions may be the end of front lawns

ATHERTON, Calif. – In 2011, Jules and Alan Nolet bought a house on a flat, sunny lot of just over an acre here. "It had a split-level house built in the '70s with massive, overgrown lawns in the front and back," Jules remembered.

They knocked down the split-level and replaced it with a 7,000-square-foot "Old World" house, codesigned by Jules, who is half-French. They ripped out the swimming pool. And perhaps most controversially in this tony town, they tore out all the grass, including the front lawn, installing Provence-style drought-resistant gardens instead.

"I found it irresponsible to put in huge expanses of manicured lawns and a swimming pool, which is the standard for a large number of Atherton homes," she said.

But these days, drought-resistant landscaping is not just the green thing to do — sometimes it's even a selling point. Planning a move to Santa Barbara, the Nolets expect to soon list their property for $7 million to $8 million, and theirs is one of a growing number of high-end properties that are on the market without the traditional lawn.

The front lawn historically has extended a grand invitation straight up to the front door, especially in upscale communities. But the rolling expanses are coming up against a sobering fact. About half of California's residential water use goes to landscaping, and much of that to watering lawns. The numbers rise in wealthy municipalities; it's up to 70 percent in neighboring Woodside, for example.

As the state prepares to implement mandatory water restrictions, prices for heavy use go up and the styles of gardens change, even high-end homeowners are questioning whether water-hungry lawns have a future.

"I certainly hope not," said Jen DiPrisco, who with husband Mario tore out the water-sucking roses, hydrangeas and most of the grass — including the front lawn — at their home on an acre lot in Lafayette.

No wonder: Running 20 sprinklers for 10 minutes can use about 300 gallons of water.

That's not to say that $10 million to $20 million houses with manicured lawns aren't still on the market. But conversations with homeowners, landscapers, builders, real estate agents and water policy experts point toward a change, especially in the wake of Gov. Jerry Brown's announcement last month about impending restrictions. They say the Bay Area — full of progressive homeowners to begin with — is passing a tipping point and that drought-resistant makeovers of high-end properties are becoming the norm.

Real estate agent Ken DeLeon, who sells luxury properties on the Peninsula, predicted that "viewpoints about the big yard are going to start changing. Up until now, buyers tended to correlate the size of the lot with the size of the grass, so maybe you'd push it out to the perimeter — push the lawn to the max. But now you're starting to hear a little bit about A, the cost of it; B, the water; and C, whether it's morally right to do."

He finds himself feeling somewhat "less bullish" about factoring lawn size into a property's value.

James Yang, a Palo Alto-based agent for the Sereno Group, went further, saying that lawn-free properties can be "a plus" for buyers with busy careers who are looking for easy maintenance.

"All that lawn — the formality of it didn't appeal to me," she said. "It wasn't my idea of a California house. It might have been fine on the East Coast."

Suzanne Arca, her landscape designer, said the concept of the great front lawn originated in Europe, where land signified wealth.

"You had grazing areas and turf areas around the house as a way of showing the wealth and the grandeur of your property. And it came over to the East Coast and came all the way out here, and then we were just stuck with it," she said.

The DiPriscos still have plenty of green out front, including along the stone path leading to their front door. The property includes a "no-mow lawn" of nontraditional grasses that require less watering than a regular lawn. There are reeds, flax and flowering plants that need little watering, too: "greens and yellows and deep purples, some oranges here and there, and chartreuse," Jen DiPrisco said.

In Atherton, Jules Nolet's focus on saving water has had an effect on her real estate agent, Arthur Sharif of Sotheby's International, who finds that more and more of his clients are "coming to grips" with the water crisis. "And it's making me more conscious of it, and now I'm trying to make others more conscious of it."

Wendy McPherson, a broker with Coldwell Banker on the Peninsula, has observed an attitudinal change, too: "We just had three offers on a $20 million property in Woodside — and there's not much front lawn," she said.

"But you have to remember that a fair number of the bigger properties have their own wells, so that really helps with the lawn," she continued. "My best friend lives in Atherton, and he has his own well. I've very jealous of his lawn. I had to let my own lawn go. I live in Menlo Park, and I let my lawn go and it looks like hell.

"Because I was trying to save water."