About Us

A black and white portrait of Peter, atop Blackrock Mountain in Jackson County, NC. He is facing to the left in profile and holding a beer in his left hand, laughing at something out of view.

Peter W Flint

Proprietor, Designer

 

Welcome. I'm Peter Flint, founder, designer, et al. of KALEIOPE Environmental Design and the person you'll be working with as you begin your landscape design journey. Thanks for taking an interest in me and my business.

KALEIOPE is what emerged after a lifetime of study and deep reflection on the nature of beauty, and a desire to orient that into a practice that directly responds to the ecological challenges we face today.

My life outdoors began as a toddler atop my father’s shoulders in the White Mountains in New Hampshire, when he noticed how I began to chirp with the birds. This love was cultivated over the course of my youth with backpacking trips through the Southern Appalachian, Presidential Range in New England, Wind River Range in Wyoming, and summers with Outward Bound. After college I followed an urge to explore a different type of wilderness and took up seafaring, logging roughly 60,000 nautical miles across ten different ships, five continents and two oceans. Between sailing contracts I was fortunate to spend time employed or volunteering on small farms and ranches in Argentina, Colorado, Arkansas, and Washington state, along with my own experiments with gardening and circular ways of living.

These experiences shaped my reverence for the deep relationships formed in settings free from urban distractions. By sitting still, I could observe the subtle but beautiful changes that occur when living in harmony with the land. How new shoots of grass spring up after intensively grazing a mob of cattle, or how rustic building methods help architecture recede into its surroundings. I discovered how our modern habits have divorced us from our bodies' ability to integrate into our environment. I realized that landscapes have their own intentions and that joy is derived is not by controlling these forces but by looking closely and working within them.

This recognition prompted my entry into landscape architecture and design practice. As my maritime career began to take a physical toll, I inventoried my talents, my questions, and my heart's desires. The land is where those intersect. For me, this a living and a vocation. It rests upon the conviction that Nature is intelligent, that we are expressions of that intelligence, and that the land intimates its desires through its custodians.

I believe we all have a responsibility to the land we occupy. A responsibility to promote the health of the biotic communities within its bounds, a responsibility to acknowledge the communities that have been displaced or harmed through its history, and a responsibility to heal those wounds accordingly.

Again, thank you for inquiring with KALEIOPE Environmental Design, I look forward to hearing from you.