Crystal Lake boundary wall, Beulah, Michigan

The grade ran two ways at once, and the brief was simple enough to sound obvious: no mortar, no veneer, no concrete cap, and nothing that would read as imposed on the site.

The wall steps with the land in long, easy sweeps. Straightness would have looked efficient and wrong. The better line was the one the site was already offering.

Local fieldstone on Crystal Lake is rounded and stubborn. Every stone had to be read before it could be set. Hearting was packed underneath and between as the courses rose, never tossed in after the fact.

Retaining sections were still built as walls, not as a single face leaning against a bank. Both faces are there, tied together and packed through, even where one face disappears below grade. Crushed aggregate behind the buried face lets water leave.