Garry Barnes hadn’t even seen the house when he told his partner, Mike Silhol, to put a contrast on it in the fall of 1999.

“A co-worker called and told him about this house that was about to go on the market. He called me and described the house, told me about the market in Dallas. I’d never seen it. But I said: ‘I trust your judgment.’”

The Preston Hollow home needed a lot of work. After the couple moved in, Barnes, a landscape architect, made the back yard his first order of business, transforming it into a garden he could show his clients.

When he first began the project, he says the back yard was a blank slate.

“We even had to put in the sewer line,” he says. “It was a good chance for me to experiment, setting up to introduce different materials and styles,” he says. “There are very traditional elements but also very modern, sculptural elements.

Not surprisingly, a garden view can be found in almost every room of the house. Barnes made sure of that by taking out small windows and adding larger French doors.

After all the basic elements were taken care of, the pool went in.

“We put it close to the house so it would be more visible from the inside. It’s very conceptual – intimate – like a large fountain.”

The next step was the arbor, which is dramatic in its position behind the pool. The wooden structure has a giant archway that leads into the back half of the yard. Barnes designed the garden to have what he calls “separate rooms.” He has portions of the yard sectioned off with plants and shrubbery, and each small area will have its own theme: the camellia garden, the water garden, and so on (he’s still working on the different areas).

After replacing a falling down fence, Barnes came across a pair of 150- to 200-year-old antique Mexican gates in San Antonio. He decided that he would design the garden entry around them.

“I really like attention to details,” he says, also pointing out stone urns, sculptures and other antique pieces that serve as a series of focal points.

Inside the home, Barnes and Silhol converted the living room into a music room. It boasts two harps and a beautiful grand piano, mostly for Barnes who studied piano in college and has been taking harp lessons for the past two years.

The biggest change to the interior came with the addition of a wing that now houses the master bedroom and bath. The entire area is designed to compliment two large silver sconces Barnes found in New Orleans. In the bathroom, rather than having cabinets built, Barnes used two furniture pieces for the sinks, had marble tops cut to fit, and the drawers were adapted to accommodate the sinks.

As for artwork, Barnes and Silhol enjoy displaying a series of oil paintings done by local artists in Vieques, a small island off the eastern coast of Puerto Rico. The two have been vacationing on the island for the past seven years and are currently building another home there.

“See this,” Barnes points out in a colorful portrait of the sea. “This is near the property where we will build our house in Vieques.”

In fact, the couple’s travels have played a big part in most of their decisions about how to design and decorate the home, both inside and out.

“We are both influenced by the gardens and architecture of Charleston, S.C., and New Orleans,” Barnes says. “So we were trying to introduce that charm and flavor to this house.”