You need a path straight out from the door, it can curve around to the drive way, but it needs to be bigger than the other path.

Place a row of large potted plants across the top step of the first set of stairs. Place in one of the pots a sign staying please use other door with arrow pointing to the left. Or a sign that says "Main entrance ahead" with an arrow pointing left. Etsy has many such signs you can purchase.

Show the entire front of the house so we can get a better idea of what you are dealing with.

I need to see the whole front of the house for sure. Also where is the driveway?

We don't want to block off the first porch. We call it the "cocktail porch" because it's where we BBQ and have cocktails. We also use it everyday to go in and out the the yard, etc. We just want people to be drawn the proper entrance. It's called a Frank Lloyd Wright style house. All the corner windows (10 of them) are butt-glazed - no framing in the corner.

I would start by clearing off all the potted plants from the front door (great to have them on your working porch, but not on the grand entrance.

Add a large light colored outdoor rug in front of the entrance door (6' or more)

If not, at least pot them all in the same style pot, so they look intentional.

Colorful plants or more stately trees, taller planters at the columns. and a statement garden in front of that area like a paved extended landing with a feature, like a bench, fountain, huge planter? into that garden space. lots of options.

Are you able to create a new walking path to the main entrance and create a more closed garden in front of your working garden room?

Plant a guiding hedge row along the sidewalk to lead you to the front porch.

I would extend the height of the other porch top ledge with a lattice like railing a foot or so taller to camo the greenhouse aspect of the porch.

it really depends on how much hardscape and gardening you want to do.

I'm not sure how this would play out with all your lovely trees, but here is a rough sketch (literally back of an envelope) showing a possibility. Make a wider walkway toward the front entrance, with a smaller sidewalk at a right angle to the cocktail porch. That makes the natural flow toward the main door.

No matter what you do, if people start down this path and the first thing they come to is a step with railings, they are going to perceive it as the entrance. Even with Ann's envelope drawing, people may just take the first right towards the cocktail patio instead of continuing down the walk way.

How often do you find that strangers are coming to your house for the first time and are confused about where to enter? Is it a daily or weekly event?

“We don't want to block off the first porch. We call it the "cocktail porch" because it's where we BBQ and have cocktails.”

Visitors will ALWAYS choose the shortest path and/or the path of least resistance. You could, however, remove those little steps up to the side porch - visitors can see the steps so they use them. Plant a row of shrubbery there to hide/disguise a steppingstone or two that you could use to exit from that porch if you have to. Don’t line up the steppingstones; instead stagger them around/behind the shrubbery. Use stones barely large enough for your foot so they are very unobtrusive.

@littlebug Zone 5 Missouri - Your suggestion would make sense if it were a space they didn't use everyday for access to the yard. But they do.

@tammydavies - The problem is you want it to be extremely accessible and easy breezy for you to use, but not for others to do so. I don't think you have it both ways. What makes it appealing to you is also what makes it appealing to and lures other visitors in as well. No planting or construction is going to overide the simple psychology of people taking the literal path of least resistance from your drive way to the first entrance they see.

AnnKH gave you your solution. Come at the main porch from the FRONT, and have the subsidiary porch be accessed by a narrower path off to the side.

Circles are going to look fake and contrived with this house. Don't go there.

This is after cleaning up the plants that obscured the porch. (They will be removed.) I think squaring off the two curves on the sidewalk and widening the sidewalk in front of the entry will help. We can't traverse the lawn to get to the front door, the leach lines are there. There is a flat spot by the garage where people park, the driveway and yard slopes down to the left. Trying to move the sidewalkdown the the left would put the entry from the driveway right in the middle of the sloped driveway which would look and be awkward.

The problem is that when someone traverses this walk, they see are a flight of steps off to the side (ok), and wall (bad) and a dark hole (also bad) in front of them.

So the front entryway has a lot of the characteristics of a private, side porch. That's what you are fighting against. It isn't a simple matter of people choosing the first entry they come to. It's all the visual cues available say that the minor entry is the correct one.

So you fix it by a wide, straight path that hits the main entry head on, with a smaller, obviously side path to the steps.

Here are some after photos, pre-landscaping. It's much improved over the straight walkway that hugged the front of the house. There will be a mounded garden feature in front of the porch which will serve as a target for the eyes, leading you to the front porch.

Beautiful! Thanks so much for the update!

Yes, thanks for the update. The much-enlarged porch area should help.

I like this better already!