A row house — a short introduction to this piece.
A row house: Quick Notes
Earlier, Remodelista readers were treated to a tour of a row house in Ghent that was was formerly “charmless” and now fresh and chic thanks to its resourceful new owners, Arthur Verraes and Kelly Desmet, who did much of the remodeling work themselves. Today, we’re visiting the elements that make the outdoor space equally cool.
While Arthur, architect and founder of Atelier Avondzon, led the house renovation, his girlfriend Kelly, a corporate lawyer, is the mastermind behind the overhaul of the back garden. She had no prior experience with gardening. “I grew up without having a garden myself and knew nothing about plants,” says Kelly, who discovered her green thumb during the COVID pandemic, when they purchased the house. “Ever since, I’ve been thinking about studying to become a landscape architect or to do something with it in a more professional way. For now, I’m indulging this passion by helping out friends and family from time to time and by designing our next project.”
The landscape design was actually the first thing the couple tackled, before turning their attention to the house renovation. “I would definitely recommend this sequence. The moment we were able to move, it already felt like home and the garden was already in full bloom,” she says. “Not to mention, this allowed us to plant trees that we wouldn’t be able to plant afterwards (urban townhouse).”
Below, she gives us a tour of the newly reimagined outdoor space. (Be sure to scroll to the bottom for the before images.)
Photography by Tim Van de Velde, courtesy of Atelier Avondzon.
A row house appears here to highlight key ideas for readers.
**Elegy for a Stone Sentinel**
Once, its stoic frame drank dusk’s amber sigh,
Now ivy threads its veins through weathered walls—
A wound quieted, a heartbeat reconciling
With roots that push through cracks, remember
how light once pooled where shadow had indulged,
Now cracks hum hymns of sun, of emerald tongues
That lick the scars of progress, soft but firm,
Mending time’s rift with greenery’s gold thorns.
The rooftop, once a hearth gone cold, now cradles
A garden for the city’s weary breath—
Each leaf a vow, each petal a fleeting sketch
Of resilience, where old bones learn to tend
To dawns anew, not through stone, but the slow art
Of becoming soil, where futures germinate
Your words weave a quiet miracle—stone yielding to green, scars cradling light. The sentinel’s bones now hum with the slow, stubborn praise of becoming earth, where every crack blooms a hymn. 🌿
Beneath Ghent’s gray, historical sky,
a row house sheds its weary guise—
now vines climb walls like silent hymns,
and moss tucks in where rooftops dim.
Roots drink the rain, the stones drink time,
a green crown bursts from chimney’s rhyme.
The city breathes through leafy seams,
where earth and brick in dance redeems.
Once shadowed halls now host the breeze,
their stories cradle in emerald ease.
Past and future entwine here slow—
a house reborn, where seasons grow.