The estate exterior is one that should always be maintained with care and attention to detail, as this is the first thing that any visitor will see when they are entering the property. It is essential for the estate manager to keep up the aesthetics of the home as well as the property management of the landscaping and property and grounds, but it is no small feet and sometimes takes an army of internal and external workers in a variety of specialties to handle everything that goes into the landscaping and outdoor property management. The estate manager should be at the helm of the project management and coordinating everyone’s tasks whether they are on a singular or a rotation basis. Landscapers, landscape architects, pool maintenance, hardscape installation and upkeep, sprinkler systems managers, and plumbers are all needed to ensure the outdoors are maintained to pristine condition.
With a variety of different specialties, it’s not always the case that each vendor take responsibility for an issue or even communicate with the other vendors who take care of the property, so it is essential for the estate manager to alert one or more of the parties if there is an issue at hand. In the case of this photo, you could see that there were brown spots in the back lawn of this particular estate, and it was ultimately the estate manager‘s responsibility to alert the appropriate vendors to handle the situation. It might’ve been the landscaping crew needing to fertilize more directly, but it was discovered after the landscapers analyzed the situation that the sprinklers didn’t have the correct head on the water spigot and the space underneath each sprinkler was not getting the water that it needed, and the sprinkler systems company was called. The company was tasked with changing out the heads which resolved the issue in time, but if the landscaper, the estate manager, or the sprinkler company had caught the error in advance, the lawn would not have suffered the brown patches like it did in this photo.
There are a few things to learn from this scenario so estate owners can ensure this type of thing does not happen on their property: first it’s vital to deploy their estate managers to do a weekly walk throughout the property and grounds to see if there is any damage or issues developing an alert the appropriate parties, and it’s also imperative that every vendor’s contract have a dedicated budget for maintenance and upkeep so that they have an incentive to come to the property on a regular basis and inspect their particular portion of the mechanical maintenance that they may be responsible for so that it doesn’t become a problem in the future. This brown patch problem could have caused the owners embarrassment if they had a special occasion on the property, so it was important that this was handled swiftly and steps were taken to ensure this did not happen again. There is an old saying "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," and in this case, a little forethought and preventative maintenance could have gone a long way to ensure the exterior of the property and landscaping was maintained in pristine condition. If you need a plan in place for your estate manager to follow to ensure all of the exterior vendors are communicating effectively and working to preserve the property correctly, please contact Luxury Lifestyle Logistics today to schedule a complimentary consultation for a property and grounds operational overview.