Ian Brown Landscaping: Rooted in Westwood, Enhancing Value

Proudly sitting in his newly expanded facility in Walpole, Ian Brown makes it clear he’s a Westwood guy.
 
“Our roots are in Westwood. I grew up in Westwood,” said Brown, the owner of Ian Brown Land Design. “I went to Thurston and the high school. My family had a few acres on Clapboardtree. It was where our family home was.”
 
That spacious property is what originally made landscaping so appealing. When Ian was young, his dad hired a landscaping team, but a budding entrepreneur was intrigued by the possibility of taking on the job himself.
 
“When I was 12, 13, 14, I would ask my dad, ‘How much are you paying these people? Isn’t this something I could do?” said Brown. “As I was growing into a young man, he had taught me how to change oil, how to fix a flat – and the yard work was next. So it lined up really well.”
 
What started as an exploration into something new blossomed into a burgeoning business opportunity as Ian progressed from high school at Westwood through college at Assumption to the days following his graduation in 2006, when he incorporated the company.
 
“Now I look back, it was that summer after senior year in high school, when you wanted to make as much money as you could mowing lawns and doing all that before college,” said Brown. “So I did, but people kept asking me to do work, even late into the fall season. I’d come home from Worcester where I went to school and would work Mondays and Fridays. I called them four-day work weekends and I just carried it through college and that’s where it started building.”
 
In the many years since, Ian has become an expert in land design, focusing his energy on developing landscapes and working with select clients to bring their visions and wishes to fruition.
 
“I do think, over time, I developed a knack for the design aspect of our work, and that’s what’s moved us from more of a maintenance-based company, where I started, to more of the land design, where you’re going to be more creative, work with clients directly and and evolve a space. That’s what we really love,” said Brown.
 
Some landscape companies build a volume-business, relying on numerous customers to support an infrastructure focused on maintenance – lawn-mowing, trimming, clean-up. Ian turned his attention to cultivating more intimate and impactful relationships with clients who rely on his experience and instinct to take their properties to a level that immediately beautifies the space while enhancing the property’s value.
 
“We know what our core skill set is and we stick with it,” said Brown. “Our skills are smaller and deliver big impact to keep the quality control and we’re focused on the end result, to develop and deliver a great result for clients. I’m on site a lot of the time. That means I can’t be doing 3000 lawns, although that’s a business model that works for some people. I have to be on the projects to keep an eye on things and show the staff exactly how I go through it. We have a process and it works.”
 
Understanding a town’s history and the unique characteristics of each individual home and property are vital to Ian’s success.
 
“Westwood is a very beautiful town with hundreds of years-old homes mixed with brand new construction,” said Brown. “So growing up in the town, I have friends and family that own homes there. I have clients that own homes there. So when you’re renovating a space with a home that’s 200, 300 years-old with elements in the landscape that are equally old, you want to embellish those and enhance them. So our skill set brings the old granite, turn-of-the-century stone work and we influence that with a new garden setting, maybe with new stone. But we blend the two. Another approach, and you see it, is new construction top to bottom. Everything new – pavers, granite blocks, things that are a bit more rigid. They have their time and place and Westwood certainly has homes like that.
 
“But Westwood’s unique because it has a blend of both and we have an adaptability to really curtail some trends for some homes and embellish others.”
 
For more, listen to my full conversation with Ian on the Westwood Living Podcast Network, available on SoundCloud, Spotify, Stitcher and YouTube and visit www.ianbrownlandscaping.com