Milieu Landscaping

My husband and I built a home and worked with Brian at Milieu for lawn grading, two paver patios and a paver sidewalk. We started out with a positive experience. We felt that we were being well taken care of. We liked the suggestions on materials and their willingness to work with us to make our home fully handicap accessible. Our largest patio had issues from the start. It was retaining water and puddling in a few spots. They also made an error with the color of our brick (missing a black brick in a decorative line) and our built in grill (pieces weren’t flush and moved when touched). Brian and his team came to fix it once but it did not solve the problem. They came back a second time and told us the water retention and grill were not a big deal and we should not bother to fox them. They offered to fox or give a small discount to leave as is. We became concerned and wanted a second opinion. Two other contractors looked at the patio issues. Both felt the issues were serious and would get progressively worse over time. They noted specific issues with construction including the puddling, underlying support for the patio and the sand washing away with the rain. At this point we selected a new person to fix the patio. We communicated this with Brian and told him we would pay the difference between our bill owed to him and the cost of the patio repair, as is our right under Illinois law. Brian ignored our communication and opted to put a lien on our house while repairs were completed. I feel that Brian and this company acted in total bad faith. I believe that they saw me as a young woman, and my disabled husband, and thought we would be easy targets to take advantage of when they made an error. Shame on them.

Kelly Jenk and her team with Milieu designed and executed a gorgeous bluestone patio behind our house. They also re-seeded our lawn we originally thought was not capable of growing grass. While the work and final product were exactly what we had in mind, the best part for me was we were never pressured into the project or up-sold.

My husband and I were extremely pleased with the shrubs, plants and flowers that Milieu Landscaping provided for our home. Kelly, the manager, was fabulous! She was professional, knowledgeable, and responded quickly to any questions we had. The landscaping was carefully done and everything planted was of excellent quality. We would highly recommend them to anyone interested in improving the landscaping around their home.

After interviewing a number of landscaping companies, we chose Milieu to design and implement significant landscaping of our backyard. Not every company had the expertise and willingness to design the backyard we had in mind. It was really important to us to fill our yard with only plants, bushes, and trees native to our region of Illinois which feed and shelter native birds, bees, butterflies, and other insects. Milieu was also flexible in scheduling the project over three years so that we could spread out the cost. Kelly, our designer, worked diligently with my wife to research and select truly native flora. Kelly was involved with every stage of the project, supervising the selection and installation of everything, including the stone walkway Milieu installed. After the first phase was completed, Kelly even returned a few times to ensure the plants were acclimating well and answered every follow-up question I had about watering and maintenance. We're very happy with the results so far; the first phase has already transformed our yard into something worth viewing, and the birds are ecstatic with the evergreens and berry bushes. We look forward to working with Milieu and Kelly for the next two years of our project. (I've included a "before" and a few "after" pictures.)

We are very pleased to have had the opportunity to work with Milieu Design over the last 14 years. They are always professional, knowledgeable and flexible in their plant selections, choosing plants that will thrive and enhance the outdoor designs of their clients. We look forward to many more years of this working relationship.

We at American National Sprinkler and Lighting Company have worked with the fine folks at Milieu Design for many years. We truly appreciate our association and relationship with Brian Frank and his staff. The many projects we have worked together have been beneficial to Milieu, American National and most importantly our mutual clients. Milieu has one of the finest landscape architects and construction crews anywhere in the Chicago land area. American National highly recommends the Milieu Design company for prospective client looking for hardscaping, landscaping or maintenance. Brett Gold, Project Manager Laury Feldman, Sr. Vice President of Sales

I've contracted Milieu for many jobs now and absolutely love their attention to detail and fair pricing. Far better than other companies I've used in the past.

Allison C. was responsive and shared some great ideas. She was thoughtful and helped us to repurpose some plants, and was quite cognizant of combination of price and aesthetics. There was a small snag in the project, and she contacted us immediately with a few workable solutions. I recommended her and the team the next day to a friend!

We sat down and met with Peter, personally at our home, to discuss using his services to landscape and hardscape our backyard around the pool. After working backing and forth on a suitable design, that fell within our budget, we agreed to use his services to complete the project. As the project begin, we started noticing that certain things, mutually agreed upon during the design phase, were not being executed as promised. Unhappy with the empty promises, we agreed to help him with his incorrect budgeting to complete the project. For example, our walking path was supposed to be regular and irregular shaped Bluestone pieces. However, because Peter budgeted the project incorrectly during the design face, we agreed to do Bluestone chip instead to help him out. A couple of weeks later as he began pouring the concrete for the stone columns that we agreed upon together for the pergola structure, we noticed that he wasn't putting eden flag stone around the concrete. We asked him about it and he said that the concrete columns were always supposed to be that way. We showed him his very own design that we both agreed upon, that showed the stone columns wrapped in eden stone and capped with Bluestone and he had nothing to say to us. Peter said that he could surround the columns with eden stone and cap them with Bluestone for an additional $20,000+. Upset with another empty promise, we declined as this was clearly out of our budget by this point in the project. Lastly, when all the work was completed and the project was finished, Peter had compelled a list of miscellaneous charges totaling in excess of $19,000. We told Peter about all the empty promises from him throughout the duration of the project and he didn't say anything. We told him, based on the agreement of our project, that we had paid for all the work completed. Which we had. (According to his agreement, any excess work done above and beyond the signed contract must be on a signed, written order.) There was not one signed, written order for anything throughout the 2 month project. Frustrated, Peter stormed off from the property. We received several bills months later. We decided to get an attorney involved and suddenly the charges went from $19,000+ to around $5,000. We still told him that we weren't paying for anything additional as we had paid in full based on our signed agreement. We held our end of the bargain with Peter. We paid everything in full and even compromised on some things to help Peter out. Unfortunately, Peter will design one thing, then build another. Beware.

I am a Master Gardner, trained at U of I Extension, creative and landscape consultant in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago. I have followed the work of Milieu Design, (i.e., Peter Wodarz), for many years. I grew up with a family of agriculture, architects, farming, land preservation, which including a member that served as the head of the Agricultural Department of Michigan State University for most of his life until he retired. My opinion and review of Milieu Design is one of unvested, worthy of great recognition and consideration for your project. Peter Wodarz and his team is one of the most creative, consonant, result driven, while meeting the needs of both his client and what is best for the overall betterment of both the property and natural environment. His creativity is unlimited for even the most challenging project. If you have any reason to be looking for the best person for your project, save yourself time, Call Milieu Design. You will be elated you did and enjoy the compliments you receive for years to come.

Milieu Design has been my landscape firm for over 15 years. Pete and has group have done all of the design (including hardscape and landscape lighting) and have literally transformed what was a pretty dull, basic "yard" into something of which I am truly proud. Throughout our relationship they have taken care of the weekly yard maintenance. I can say without hesitation that all of the work has been performed to the highest standards and I have recommended the firm to several friends. The most recently project completed was an upgrade to a portion of my backyard, which is highlighted below.

I have used Milieu for several years. I count on them to satisfy all my clients landscaping needs and they always follow thru.