Homestyle | April 2012

April 2012 Des Moines HOMESTYLE 1

April 2012

An Urbandale woman uses her 6,500-square-foot home as an outlet for her eclectic tastes

Make your mudroom functional and attractive

HER HOME,HER CANVAS

Inside Drake President David Maxwell’s South

of Grand homePAGE 14

Des Moines HOMESTYLE April 20122

AprilCONTENTS

Editor Tim PaluchStaff Writers Patt Johnson Jennifer MillerDesigner Amanda HolladayStaff Photographers Andrea Melendez David Purdy Eric Rowley To place an ad call: Kimm Miller(515) 284-8404 Des Moines Register Magazine DivisionVice President, Content Rick GreenPresident and Publisher Laura Hollingsworth

Contact us: Des Moines HOMESTYLE P.O. Box 957 Des Moines, Iowa 50306 email: [email protected] subscribe to Des Moines HOMESTYLE magazine, call (515) 284-8359.These materials are the sole and exclusive property of the Des Moines Register & Tribune Co. and are not to be used without its written permission.© 2012 Des Moines Register & Tribune Co.

Above: Madeleine Maxwell and Gus, inside the South of Grand home they share with David Maxwell, president of Drake University.

On the cover: The door to Lynne Jordan’s Urbandale home, a 6,500-square-foot house filled with the homeowner’s eclectic wares and decor.

SHOP3 Using numbers as a design

element in everything from your kitchen to your jewelry box.

FEATURED HOMES6 Lynne Jordan sees her

6,500-square-foot Urbandale home as a canvas used to explore her eclectic tastes.

14 A peek inside the home of Drake University president David Maxwell and family.

MUDROOMS22 April showers bring muddy

entryways. How to turn your mudroom into a functional AND attractive space.

DESIGNER28 Don Curry of Loki’s Garden

aims to stay off the beaten path when helping clients design their outdoor spaces.

March 2012 Des Moines HOMESTYLE 3

countUse numbers as a design element in everything from your kitchen to your jewelryBy Megan FITZgeRaLD ThoMpson • photos by Eric rowlEy

Make it

Use vintage pop bottle cap magnets on the fridge to hold up important memos or messages for the family. $18, Pottery Barn.

Des Moines HoMESTYLE March 20124

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Frame as many of these to create commemorate numerical moments like birthdays and anniver-saries, or even a home address. Methane prints, $15, Domestica.

Easily bring the number trend into the home with these fashion-able, neutral metal prints, available in two different sizes. Large print, $16, Porch Light.

March 2012 Des Moines HOMESTYLE 5

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Pottery Barn Inside Jordan Creek Town Center

Spice up a chaise or side chair with a country French-in-spired pillow. The delicate script in colored print makes it easy to add these pillows to any themed space. $35, Sisters.

These bracelets are made from vintage license plates. $40, Domestica.

Set a pretty ivory printed ceramic dish bedside to work as a catchall for rings, earrings and bobby pins. Zinnia dishes, $17, Domestica.



Lynne Jordan’s eclectic taste found a canvas inside her Urbandale home

Animal magnetismby CRAIG SUMMERS BLACK • photos by PAUL GATES

Lynne Jordan’s home on an Urbandale cul de sac features a turret that houses a spiral staircase. In the sunroom (left), an antler chandelier casts its glow on a llama hide throw she handcrafted. “The other one is a faux throw,” she says. Most of the other pieces are real.



In planning and decorating the home she and her then-husband were building, Lynne Jordan had in mind “somewhere between a cottage and a castle.” Her husband said he liked the idea of a cottage.

But the result – with its stone turret, soaring ceilings, massive wooden beams, antique

fireplaces, bear rug, wolf-skin throws, zebra-hide ottoman and real and faux mounted animal trophies – is more like … well, you decide.

All 6,500 square feet of the home is filled with objets de Lynne – a mammoth globe, an African body mask of a pregnant woman (in the bathroom!), an antler chandelier, carved foo dogs, a simian lamp. You get the idea.

“Friends say I could sell half of it and never miss it,” Jordan says with a laugh. CONTINUED >>

The living room (left) shares the see-through fireplace with the kitchen’s hearth area (below). Jordan painted the living-room doorway designs, inspired by European cathedrals, herself. The spiral staircase (right) to the lower level, with ironwork by Artistic Iron Works, is in the turret. In the dining room (lower right), Jordan entwined vines throughout a leaf-pattern chandelier she found in Chicago. Designer Kathy Douglass Albee found the chairs.

And Jordan, who is now single, has surrounded herself with what seems to be guy gear. “A friend said my taste is a little on the masculine side, and I guess that’s true,” she says. “It’s just a collection of different things from a lot of places. And it’s here because I love it all so much.”

Jordan, who used to work as an art teacher before becoming a field executive for State Farm, does have an eye for juxtaposition.

“Sometimes you have to build things around what you have, incorporate in things you like,” she says. “Things that seem kind of normal, sometimes you put them in a certain place and they don’t seem all that normal. That’s a lot of fun.”

The story of Jordan’s Urbandale home began when she and Wes Jordan went in search of a wooded lot to build a home on, a spot with a little less traffic and a little more personality than the one they were living in at the time.

“We had driven by this lot several times, and Wes always said, ‘We’re not paying that for this.’ But when he drove by it with our contractor, Mark Kiester, Mark shows it to him and says, ‘This is the best lot,’ and Wes bought it the same day.”

Lynne Jordan had already been working with

In the living room, faux flowers rest in a faux horn urn (top left) from Designing Women. The bed in the master bedroom (above) is from one of Mark Kiester’s show homes. The monkey lamp (left) guards a family photo.

CONTINUED >>

The imposing door at the home’s entry is from South America. “You know how many of those new homes you open the front door and the dining room is right inside? I didn’t want that,” Jordan says.


The kitchen’s cherry wood and granite tops glow be-neath the imposing exposed beams. Like the living room, the kitchen has 17-foot ceil-ings. The stove is by Viking. “I cook a lot, bake a lot,” Jordan says.


architect Joe Ahmann, and a collaboration was born.

“We knew we wanted higher ceilings,” she says. “We wanted a walkout. We wanted a house with a little more character. That was my mission.”

Along the way, Jordan made antiquing trips to Walnut, Ia., some surgical strikes at West End Architectural Salvage and the Majestic Lion, took a road trip with designer Tommy Tucker to Chicago, and embarked on an almost-secretive venture to meet a guy in the country who just might have some stuff he just might want to sell if you really are serious.

“I love going to Walnut,” she says. “Maybe that’ll be my next career – I’ll be a picker.”

And, of course, all the treasures had to find a home here. “Mark was great about finding places for things. Like the carved arches in the sunroom. I just liked them. Do you think I knew where they were going? No. But I had a vision of what this would be like.”

Eight years after the house was finished, so too is the long process of finding the appropriate decor. But she’s not done yet.

“See, this is just the canvas,” Jordan says, smiling. “I could work here for the rest of my life.”

The guest powder room (top left) is reflected in a mirror from Designing Women. In the master bath (top right and above), the translucent sinks are from Chicago, the stat-uettes are from an antique store. Inset in the tile work around the bath is more ironwork by Louis Rizzuti of Artistic Iron Works.



Madeleine Maxwell and Gus (left) relax in the comfortable sunroom of the home they share with Maxwell’s husband, Drake Uni-versity President David Maxwell. The 107-year-old house’s living room (above) serves as a showcase for many of the treasures the Maxwells have collected over the years from family and from their travels.

by Patt Johnson • photos by DaviD PurDy

CONTINUED >>

Such a wonderful

old houSeDrake University’s first family has filled the president’s

residence with treasures from their travels, including art and mementos from Russia, where they made their home years ago

The presidential mansion in Des Moines’ tony South of Grand neighborhood presents a regal welcome to visitors. A grand

circular drive and brick covered porch greet visitors to the home of Drake University President David Maxwell and his wife, Madeleine Maxwell.

Once inside, the warm, comfortable and inviting home suggests there are more easy conversations than formal presentations happening in the grand 107-year-old house. The house mascots – Gus, a shy but friendly labradoodle, and George, a talkative orange and white cat – greet visitors at the door.

Much of the charm of the Tudor-style home, with its Arts and Crafts and cathedral influences, is from the activity that goes on inside. In the Maxwells’ 12 years in the home, which is owned by Drake, they have entertained more than 12,000 people at planned events, plus thousands more at informal gatherings. They’ve hosted dignitaries,


most recently a Chinese delegation that included Vice President Xi Jinping.

From the Maxwells’ perspective, the 6,100-square-foot home is not meant to be a don’t-sit-on-the-white-sofa residence, but a welcoming place for visitors and, more importantly, Drake faculty and students. The Maxwells brought most of the furnishings, although some pieces were purchased by the four previous Drake presidents who lived there.

“It’s our home in every sense of the word, although we don’t hold the deed,” says Madeleine Maxwell, an illustrator, designer and creative director. “We have always wanted to make our home accessible to people.”

Bits and pieces of the original house are still in place, like the beautiful hardwood floors, woodwork, some lighting and three fireplaces. The house also has been updated over the years: the addition of first- and second-

floor sunrooms that were once open sleeping porches; the installation of a first-floor bathroom in a former closet; and a tile patio on the south side of the house, once the place where footmen would deliver guests to a covered entryway.

Modern updates like granite countertops in the kitchen, recessed lighting in the living room, new heating and cooling systems and showers have changed the function of the home, but not the character.

“It’s such a wonderful old house,” Maxwell says.

And whatever the house lacks, Maxwell has found a solution – and most often a thrifty one. Take for instance the scarcity of closet space in the six bedrooms. Maxwell snagged some unused large oak wardrobes from Drake’s dormitory storage and placed them in the rooms. She’ll also take fresh flowers that once served another

purpose on campus to decorate for a dinner or tea at her home.

“This house makes people feel at home,” says Traci Hartman, executive assistant of residence operations, which means she helps run the house and the crews of students and caterers who help with entertaining.

The Maxwells have a fixed house budget from the university, and have always put students and faculty needs before home improvements. “If it’s a choice between doing some work in the house or a faculty member going to a conference,” the latter should prevail, Maxwell says.

There is still much work needed to update the house, which is one of the grand dames on a street filled with other stately mansions. The tiny bathroom off the Maxwells’ bedroom has a single sink and barely enough room to accommodate two people. To compensate for the lack of heat, the

CONTINUED >>

The first-floor sunroom was once an open sleeping porch before being enclosed many years ago. The comfortable couch and chairs provide the Maxwells and their guests a place to relax. The expansive back yard is a playground for the family’s pets, Max, the dog, and George, the cat.


A small but bright kitchen has re-ceived some minor updates in recent years, including the addition of granite counter-tops and stainless steel appliances. Caterers and student workers help prepare and serve meals in the compact space for dinners and other events hosted by the Maxwells.


The Maxwells added bookshelves to the main bedroom (top left) and the living room (bottom right) to accommodate their vast collection of books and mementos. The house also features artwork (top right) from Madeleine Maxwell’s father, who was a physician and painter. The Max-wells decorated most of the house with their own furniture, including a bench and chest (bottom left) in one of the home’s many bedrooms.


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Maxwells had radiant heating installed in the bathroom floor.

They also replaced the old shower with a new tiled version a few years ago. But expanding the shower or bathroom itself would be a costly, and messy, project considering the home’s bones, which are mostly concrete and steel.

“To get any work done in the house is an incredible feat,” Maxwell says.

Still, with all its aging parts, the elegant home is full of warmth and character. The first floor features a small den decorated by a previous Drake president with hunter green carpet and paint. David Maxwell uses the room as his home office, and it’s filled with floor-to-ceiling oak bookshelves and his personal items and books.

The living room is a large, bright space that is welcoming and personal, with shelves and walls filled with family heirlooms and art and memorabilia

CONTINUED >>The first-floor dining room can seat up to 30 people with extra tables.


The casual lower level of the home (top and above) is a place where the Maxwells entertain and relax. Visiting students are invited to play pool and have one-on-one conversations with President David Maxwell.

The home’s historyThe large brick house at 227 37th St. sits on almost two acres in a regal South of Grand neighborhood. Des Moines attorney Nathaniel Guernsey built what is now the home for Drake University presidents. Guernsey paid $26,000 for the new house, which today is valued at a little more than $1 million.

Guernsey lived in the home, which featured silk-and-wool damask curtains hung from German gold cornices and walls covered with French foliage tapestry, for four years before selling it to Mary and Charles Prouty. Charles was a local businessman who made his fortune as owner of the Prouty Bowler Soap Co. and Poncele Water Co.

Drake University bought the mansion in 1943 for an estimated $10,000. Work was done to the home, including the addition of a wraparound porch on the back and a new heating system to replace the boiler in the carriage house from where heat was piped to the main house via an underground tunnel.

The mansion has been home to five Drake presidents and their families: Henry Harmon, Paul Sharp, Wilbur C. Miller, Michael R. Ferrari and David Maxwell, the current president.


from the couple’s travels.

A series of small watercolor paintings line an upstairs hallway. Maxwell painted the character studies of people she met in Russia while she and David lived there 40 years ago. “I used ordinary Russian paper and a set of Prang watercolors,” she says of her then-minimal artists’ supplies.

The first floor also features a bright and cozy sunroom, a large dining room that can seat 30 with extra tables, and a small kitchen. Maxwell says she updated the kitchen by adding new countertops and a glass and tile backsplash she found on eBay – “Why spend more when you can buy the same thing for less on eBay?”

A bargain shopper, Maxwell loves to discover finds at shops like T.J.Maxx, Tuesday Morning and Marshalls. And she loves all things whimsical, like the red wallpaper with blue dogs in the first-floor bathroom, a nod to Drake’s royal blue school color and bulldog mascot.

A third floor of the home, which once featured a large ballroom and bedrooms for servants, is being used for exercise equipment, storage and Madeleine Maxwell’s art supplies.

The Maxwells like to relax in the finished basement, which features exposed brick walls and a pool table. They often host students for pizza and whoopie pies, and get-to-know sessions with the president.

“Really, the emphasis here is on the students,” Maxwell says. “We want the whole house to be warm and welcoming.”

Drake President David Maxwell’s at-home office (top) includes bookcases built for the room. Madeleine Maxwell decorated the home’s bedrooms including the cozy and bright master bedroom (middle) and the colorful safari room (bottom). With little closet space in the rooms, Maxwell reused old dorm wardrobes to hold clothes and other items.


by Jennifer Miller • photos by AndreA Melendez

Mud season Just because the aptly named ‘mudroom’ is hardworking doesn’t mean it can’t be good looking, too

April showers may bring May flowers, but they also bring lots of muddy shoes, drippy jackets and mucked-up chore-doing duds and sports uniforms.

Carrie Norris and David Kruse, owners of Grand Homes & Renovations, say mudrooms are becoming more and more popular in homes. “So many homes were built with not much room to do anything when you come in from the garage,” Kruse says, “not even to take off your shoes. (Mudrooms) aren’t always the most glamorous space, but they are really useful.”

“But it’s actually pretty easy to make the space look good,” Norris says. “The bigger challenge is to make it functional.”

These three central Iowa homes have managed to include mudrooms – two of them designed by Norris – that combine an element of style with the practicality of storage, hanging space and a laundry area.

The mudroom entrance from the back door of Maureen McGarry and Roger Kinkor’s home has long cubbies on either side, with cupboards and cubbies.


The family: Maureen McGarry and Roger Kinkor, and three sons ages 10, 16 and 18.

The home: In West Des Moines. Purchased about 16 years ago as a half-built spec home, which included a mudroom/laundry area in the plans.

The redo: As their two, then three boys grew (and grew), McGarry and Kinkor realized they needed more space. They bumped out the back of the house to meet the back of their garage, creating a larger footprint.

The space: Six large, wooden lockers, an extra refrigerator and a small desk area McGarry claims as her own. Storage drawers below the lockers, open space for shoes below the drawers. Above the lockers are more cabinets for storage, with magnetized doors to hold notes, schedules or photos. Also a laundry area.

The best part: Adding a door that opens directly outside to the backyard. “That’s big because we have lots of kids coming in and out, and it’s very functional for three boys who do lots of sports,” McGarry says.

Coming into the laundry area from the garage entrance to Maureen McGarry and Roger Kinkor’s home (above), there are plenty of cabinets both above and below the long countertop and laundry sink. Ben Kinkor, 10, (below) uses the computer at the built-in desk area in the mudroom and laundry area. The hallway with cubbies leads to the back door.

Drawers and open areas beneath the cubbies in Maureen McGarry and Roger Kinkor’s mudroom (above) store smaller items and pro-vide a place for dirty shoes. A small desk area (below) keeps papers out of the kitchen and the extra refrigerator offers cold storage space for parties and beverages. Light-finish cupboards, a yellowish wall and mottled floor tile keep the functional room warm and inviting.

McGarry and Kinkor home


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The family: Kris and Becky Lachenmaier, and two sons, ages 4 and 8.

The home: In Urbandale. Purchased in 2004 and the family completely reworked the first floor in 2009. “We thought it would be big enough when we bought it,” Kris says, but when people started visiting and as their two children got bigger, “we realized it wasn’t.”

The redo: By Grand Homes & Renovations. The tiny hallway near the laundry room could hardly be called a mudroom and there was no place for all the family detritus. The Lachenmaiers also wanted a whole new entry from the garage.

The space: A locker for each family member with cabinets above and seats with drawers below. Adjacent laundry room with more cabinet storage. A desk area to keep office clutter out of the main living areas.

The best part: “I can’t think of anything I’d change,” Kris says. “I’m completely happy with it and we use it all the time. It has a great layout.”

Drawers under each bench in Kris and Becky Lachenmaier’s mudroom (above) store small items, and open spaces below hold baskets for shoes. Each stained-wood cubby (above right) offers several storage options. Just outside the mud-room in the hallway (below) is another closet and a desk area. This is the view from the entrance right off the garage.

Lachenmaier home


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Kris Lachenmaier puts his son Gehrig’s shoes on in the family’s mudroom. Ceramic tile floors and stained wood lockers are sturdy and easily cleaned.


The family: John and Bridget Pargulski and three children (two still living at home).

The house: In Johnston. Built by the Pargulskis in 2006. Bridget knew she needed a mudroom. “In our old house we didn’t have one and there was no place to dump all the stuff. I wanted to have an organized ‘dumping zone,’” she says. All three of their children lived at home at the time.

The space: Benches that lift up for storage with hooks above those and cabinets above those. A closet on each end, one for coats and storage and one for the hoses and accoutrements for the central vacuum. Travertine flooring and a laundry area.

The best part: The lidded benches and their hidden storage and the floor material, which Bridget says is “durable and pretty and easy to clean,” and ties most of the first floor together.

What Bridget would change: “I would make the closets wider and the bench shorter so there was more room to hang things.”

Bridget Pargulski (above) loves the warm tone of the cherry cabinets and the ease of caring for the Travertine floors in her Johnston mudroom and laundry area. A closet at one end of the bench (right) adds hanging space for extra coats. If she had it to do again, Pargulski would have made this closet bigger. A small wall hides the washer and dryer (opposite page) from view. Cabinets above keep supplies out of sight but within reach.

Pargulski home


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Plan aheadCarrie Norris and David Kruse offer these suggestions for planning a mudroom:

1. Consider your daily habits. Be honest and don’t expect yourself to make drastic changes within your routine.

2. Decide whether you want open or closed storage. If your mudroom is close to the kitchen or living room, use doors and drawers, or think about adding a pocket door to close off the area. Open storage can be helpful with lots of coats or backpacks, but offers less separation.

3. Take into account the needs of a changing family. Take into consideration the length of coats and backpacks and how that changes. Have a drop zone or locker for the adults, too. The space needs to be flexible as your family’s needs change.

4. Use forgiving materials. Stained or natural finished wood can be very beautiful and low maintenance. Mixing painted and stained wood can also offer a very comfortable look.

5. Make room for a mudroom. It does not have to be a separate room. Norris and Kruse say they have been able to incorporate them in rarely used closets, garages and just by simply repurposing space.

Pargulski home


Loki charmsA local landscape designer and Renaissance man

prefers working off the beaten (garden) path

distinctive designer

by Jennifer Miller • photos special to the publication


Don Curry describes his childhood stomping ground in the Pacific Northwest as an almost mythical place. The primeval trees grew 100 feet

tall and a boy could get lost in giant ferns that waved over his head. It was a place where the ground bent beneath his feet, cushioned by eons of fallen evergreen needles. A place so fecund, Curry says, “I could push a stick into the ground and two weeks later, I’d have a little tree.”

That kind of big magic stays with a person, and in this case led Curry to choose a life centered on all things growing – and eventually to the founding of Loki’s Garden.

Curry earned the nickname Loki from a third-grade teacher who noted his similarities to Loki, a Norse god of mischief. And despite Curry’s best efforts at deflection (he once named a dog Loki so

people wouldn’t call him that), the moniker stuck. (If you can’t beat ’em ...)

But it’s not much of a stretch to imagine the never-still, never-

stumped-for-words Curry – with his busy, piercing hazel eyes, wind-, sun- and cold-burned face and beard twisted into a mischievous point – as a handful.

Loki’s Garden in its nascent form was basically Curry and a truck, doing landscaping, construction and handyman projects during the hours he wasn’t working as a book editor at Meredith. Today, as well as offering landscaping and hardscaping services, light construction work and remodeling and handyman services, the company has a garden center

CONTINUED >>

Katie Leporte’s backyard (above) was transformed by a new privacy fence that still feels open, and a casual, meandering landscape line around the yard. Don Curry, a.k.a. Loki, (opposite page) got his nickname from Loki (above left) the Norse god of mischief. Note the pointy beard on both Lokis.

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in Van Meter. It all became official in 2009 when Curry, his partner Justin Hancock (horticulturalist), Brian Douglas (finance) and Dan Royers (marketing) combined their respective talents to form Loki’s Garden in its current incarnation.

Loki’s Garden design philosophy, Curry says, is all about staying off the beaten path and going the extra mile to stay on that lightly trod trail.

“There is an appropriate plant for every spot. We’re willing to track things down. And if you see it at other garden centers, you probably won’t see it at ours,” he says. “We tend toward the exceptional, the weird, the odd.”

Also, Curry is firm in his belief that your garden should always be interesting and beautiful. “You should start to see flowers when the snow stops and see them all the way until it starts again.”

Katie Leporte and her husband appreciate Curry’s eye for the unusual, and her backyard was one of Loki’s Garden’s first large-scale projects. “Before, it was a no frills yard,” Leporte says. “There were a few peonies, an apple tree … not much really. They built a beautiful, unique fence and absolutely transformed the backyard with a meandering landscape line.” An inviting little corner, with a bench under the apple tree and vining flowers entwined in the fence, has become Leporte’s favorite retreat.

“We were inspired by their own gardens

when they took us to see them. And they knew we weren’t real gardeners, so they made sure all the plants were hardy. They were great collaborators. We’ve recommended them to several friends,” she says.

Curry says all the plants at Loki’s have been tested – most of them in that garden he took Leporte to visit, which he describes as “crazy.”

“It’s a collector’s garden – nothing I would ever plant for a client. There’s probably $400,000 worth of plant material out there that I’ll never recoup, but I use it as a business tool,” he says. “I take people there and show them what the plants actually look like in the ground.”

Curry, 49, describes his journey to this place and time as “a long and winding road.” He has been a teacher and a writer and an editor specializing in children’s books. As a kid in Washington, Curry once lived in a “grand old Victorian” home gone to seed. So, he says, he learned how to restore it. Besides running Loki’s, Curry has continued doing preservation work in Des Moines’ Cheatom Park, buying and restoring dilapidated but fine-boned homes in the neighborhood north of downtown, where he and Hancock also live.

It’s almost too tidy a metaphor that the original Norse Loki was said to be a shape-shifter, but even for this Jack-of-all-trades (and master of many), working with growing things has been a constant.

A few of Loki’s 2012 favorites

Perennials Aralia ‘Sun King’ Bleeding heart ‘Gold Heart’ Coreopsis ‘Cosmic Evolution’ Dianthus ‘Very Cherry’

Trees Black sugar maple Dwarf river birch ‘Fox Valley’ Columnar apple ‘Golden Treat’ Pawpaw

Shrubs Elderberry ‘Black Lace’ Hydrangea ‘Gilded Gold’ Hydrangea ‘Little Lime’ Hydrangea ‘Phantom’

A stone seating area (above) designed by Loki’s Garden. One of the Victorian homes (top left) in the Cheatom Park area that Curry is working on restoring. This Sky-lands spruce (top right)The Skylands spruce is one of Curry’s favorite plants and one he has planted in his own yard. It has bright yellow needles in the spring, which, Curry says, “literally stop traffic.” This is a mature speci-men in the New York Botanical Gardens.”


“I’ve been doing this since I was a kid. I grew up with plant people, home gardeners, environmentally conscious people.” He also grew up in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s in a place where people lived “green” before “green” was an environmental imperative following close on the heels of a yuppie/hipster meme.

Curry was also heavily influenced by a fellow named Burt – not his contemporary but a soul mate nonetheless.

“One of my best friends was an old guy who had a tree farm outside of town. I used to go there all the time to help. I did whatever needed done – digging up trees, propagation. He taught about grafting, which has been a good skill to have.”

Though Curry has attended countless horticultural seminars and holds handfuls of certifications in things plant-related, his expertise, he says, “is from real hands-on, real-life experience.” And from relentless hard work. “I’m a lifelong insomniac. One of my nicknames as a little kid was Sunshine, because if the sun was up, so was I. I tend to exhaust people,” he says with a completely unapologetic grin.

Perhaps because of Curry’s indefatigable spirit, Loki’s Garden has flourished, even during this yearslong economic winter. Curry attributes the success to customer service. “My heart and soul, my passion, is plants. I think our business has grown because we do what we say we’ll do. We take care of our clients. No job is too small – that’s where we got started after all – and when you do right by the small jobs, people remember you. They talk about you and they come back.”

Loki’s GardenFind it: 29154 360th St., Van Meter (515) 996-2466; www.lokisgarden.com

Loki’s Garden offers all sorts of landscaping, construction and handyman services as well as a full-service nursery. This dry creek bed (left) was built for a client to control water runoff. Loki’s Garden crew (below) builds a retaining wall and raised bed meant to provide privacy to part of a client’s yard.A mature bleeding heart (below left) blooms in a shady spot of a client’s yard.

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Homestyle | April 2012