Our client lived for years in japan, loved its houses and gardens, and wanted to create a bit of the same magic in her Berkeley home. When we redesigned and rebuilt her deck- one story above the garden- she asked for traditional Japanese thatched awnings over the doors. We planted vines- roses, wisteria, solanum and hardenbergia- and trees to grow up around the deck so that it would be surrounded in greenery, framing but not blocking the Golden Gate view. The stair descends through the deck. From there- through a garden we planned for casual, relatively care-free profusion and wildness- a stone path leads under cover of trees down to the hot tub. The tub and its own small deck we carpentered to fit precisely into the crook of an existing huge sheltering acacia. We surrounded the tub with bamboo, for privacy, and for a sense of being far, far away.