Founder, Eden & Dane

A practitioner,
not a vendor.

Dane Hoover founded Eden & Dane to do landscape work the way he wished it had been done all along. Estate-grade design, regenerative discipline, and a relationship with the owner that lasts longer than the install.

He leads every project personally, from first walk to final planting. The work is collaborative - a small studio, a trusted field team, no production-line drawings and no anonymous handoffs. Every client works directly with the people doing the work.

Dane Hoover, Founder
Philosophy

Most landscape work treats the land as a surface. Eden & Dane treats it as a relationship.

The standard model in this industry separates beauty from biology, design from stewardship, and the designer from the gardener. The result, almost everywhere, is properties that look composed for the first season and degrade quietly for the next twenty.

We work the opposite way. Soil, hydrology, ecology, and the way the owner actually lives on the land come first. The visible design - stone, water, structure, planting - emerges from those decisions. It is the consequence, not the starting point.

This is slower work, and more demanding. It produces landscapes that are difficult to mistake for someone else's. Properties that get richer with each passing year. Land that becomes a place you cannot imagine living without.

Practice

Four braided disciplines.

Eden & Dane does not specialize in one thing. The work demands all four at once, woven together. None of them are negotiable.

Landscape Design

Estate-scale design with a quiet hand. Composition, sightlines, and a structural language that reads "intentional" rather than "wild." Drawings, renders, and documentation that survive contact with reality.

Regenerative Ecology

Soil biology, hydrology, water harvesting, and pollinator habitat. The disciplines that turn a designed landscape into a living system that gets healthier with every season rather than declining.

Stone & Structure

Cairns, dry-stack walls, basins, fountains, and accessory structures. The lasting elements that anchor a property visually and survive generations. Built by hand, designed to last as long as the land.

Land Stewardship

Multi-year care after the install. Seasonal pruning, soil amendments, succession planting, and the patient attention that turns a beautiful first year into a place that compounds in beauty over decades.

Studio

A small team, chosen with care.

Eden & Dane is intentionally small. Dane leads every project, supported by two design interns who bring rigorous training and fresh thinking to the work, and a field team that has spent years building the systems we design.

Claire
Landscape Design Intern

Claire is a second-year Master of Landscape Architecture candidate at Cornell University. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science from Florida State University, where she tended a plot at the Seminole Organic Gardens and worked as a horticulturist at Walt Disney World. She works fluently in ArcGIS, AutoCAD, Lumion, Rhino with Grasshopper, and the Adobe Suite - and does exceptional work by hand. At Eden & Dane she supports design production, site work, and client coordination.

Vivian
Landscape Design Intern

Vivian is a Master of Landscape Architecture candidate at Cornell University. She grew up on a permaculture farm in Australia and worked alongside her environmentalist mother in coastal Maine. She is an artist, a geographer, an outdoors woman, and an activist whose approach to design is rooted in landscape as a form of stewardship - a way to build communities that are sustainable, abundant, and connected to the land. At Eden & Dane she leads research, grant discovery, and drafting.

The Field Team
Installation and Stewardship

Our field team is a small group of highly experienced installers with years of hands-on work building the systems Eden & Dane designs - permaculture guilds, drip irrigation, orchards, stone, and native plantings. They work under Dane's direct oversight on every project. The result is design and installation held to a single standard, without the loss of quality that happens when a plan changes hands.

How we work together

A relationship, not a transaction.

Most engagements begin with a 15-minute conversation and unfold over years. Here is what working with Eden & Dane actually feels like.

i

Discovery

A free 15-minute call. We talk about your land, your life, and what you want the place to become. By the end, you'll have a clear sense of which engagement makes sense and what the realistic next step looks like. No pressure to commit on the call.

ii

Site immersion

For full design engagements, we begin with an in-depth on-site walk. Soil, hydrology, microclimates, sightlines, and the way you actually live on the land. This is the most clarifying part of the engagement. Most clients tell me the conversation itself is worth the price of admission.

iii

Concept & refinement

Initial concepts, sketches, and renders. We refine through one or two rounds of feedback. Nothing breaks ground until you are certain. The design phase is where the real thinking happens - most of the work is decided here, before a shovel touches the soil.

iv

Build

For full-build engagements, I direct the install personally. Stone work, water features, planting, and structural elements come together over weeks or months. Direct line to me throughout. No project managers, no handoffs, no surprises.

v

Stewardship

Most clients keep me on a multi-year stewardship pathway. Seasonal visits, refinements, and the slow work of helping the property come into itself. This is where designed landscapes become real places.

About Dane

The shorthand.

What's your background?
I hold a bachelor's degree in sustainable community development and have spent the last seven years practicing regenerative landscape design and ecological restoration across the West Coast and the DMV. Before founding Eden & Dane, I worked across permaculture, ecological restoration, and estate landscape projects. The studio is the synthesis of all of it.
What credentials do you bring to the work?
Eden & Dane operates as a design-led practice. The work draws on a bachelor's in sustainable community development, seven years of regenerative landscape design practice, and ongoing study in soil biology, hydrology, and ecological restoration. For projects that require stamped engineering or formal credentialing - large grading projects, public-facing permitting - we collaborate with credentialed engineers and consultants. For everything else, the design and execution flow through me directly.
How big is the team?
The studio is intentionally small. Dane leads every project - designs it, walks the site, and directs every install - supported by two Landscape Design Interns from Cornell's Master of Landscape Architecture program and a trusted field team of experienced installers. Long term, I expect to grow the studio with collaborators across allied disciplines. For now, deliberately small and personally led.
Where are you based and where do you work?
The studio is based in Great Falls, Virginia. We work full-service across the DMV - Great Falls, McLean, Fairfax County, Washington D.C., and surrounding areas. The Strategy and Design tiers are delivered remotely worldwide. We've worked with owners in California, New England, the Hamptons, and overseas.
What kind of clients do you typically work with?
The clients we work best with tend to share a few things: they own land they care about, they think on a long horizon, and they're willing to invest in doing the work properly the first time. Most own estates between 0.5 and 10 acres. Some are first-time landowners, some are stewarding multigenerational property. The common thread is the willingness to treat their land as something more than a backdrop.
Do you teach or speak publicly?
Yes. I'm available for talks, panels, and private speaking engagements on regenerative design, estate landscape design, and land stewardship. For requests, reach out via the contact page or email [email protected].
What's the long-term vision for Eden & Dane?
A studio that does this work at the highest level, with the discipline and patience it deserves. A small number of significant projects each year, deeply tended over decades. Collaborators across design, ecology, and craft, integrating custom homes with the land they sit on. The work is not about scale. It is about depth.

If your land is asking for something more,
let's talk.

A 15-minute call. No pressure, no commitment. By the end you'll have a clearer sense of what your property is capable of becoming.

Book a discovery call