Jean Roth Driscoll’s hilltop home boasts beautiful views of Los Angeles
FormLA Friend and Theodore Payne Foundation board member Gary Breaux lives in a beautiful South Pasadena midcentury modern home designed by Jean Roth Driscoll. It’s perch on top of a hill gives it spectacular views – and a few wildfire vulnerabilities we wanted to address in designing the spaces that surround this gem.
In 2025, Gary spoke with Cal Fire about his experience with fire and what having properly prepared defensible space means for his space. You’ll get a sense for just how lovely and livable defensible space can be.
This isn’t Gary’s first time speaking to his property’s fire preparations. In the tours that follow, you’ll hear from Gary and FormLA Landscaping President Cassy Aoyagi – see more of the garden’s defensive landscaping strategies, which include:
- An ample ember resistant zone – perfect for hosting parties!
- Trails that meander through clusters of deep-rooting, lush, leafy, foliage serve as firebreaks,
- A bioswale sinks water to fuel foliage health and resilience and adds yet another ember resistant barrier between the wood fence and the home,
- Established tree canopy shields the home from prospective ember casts – and shades it from sun on a typical South Pasadena summer day, and
- Well structured and maintained foliage supported by low-flow, subsurface irrigation.
Project Tours
The Breaux garden so beautifully illustrates fire defensive design strategies, the homeowners also hosted a tour to help educate and inspire others. The project was the site of the final, capstone video of a series on fire defense by the Thedore Payne Foundation, which featured FormLA President Cassy Aoyagi.
We hope you enjoy these conversations and take away something that helps you prepare your property and community.
Project Snapshot
Designed and built by FormLA Landscaping, the Breaux beautifully maintain and evolve the garden themselves with occasional guidance. Here are some of our favorite spaces in the garden:
Plant Palettes
While all plants will burn under the right circumstances, choosing and maintaining plants that thrive on low water, survive extreme heat, and produce little litter, is more defensive (and enjoyable!) than gravelscaping. Here are plant palettes we use to create defensible space that feels lush, leafy and vibrant.
More Information
Here is a little more information about the strategies we used to create this garden:
