Blue spruces once screened an extraordinary water feature in the front yard of this Eden Prairie, Minn., home from the street and neighbors. But the 30-year-old spruces started dying, and the homeowners weren’t willing to wait years for a new row of trees to mature and fill in. Since the city wouldn’t permit the family to put up a tall privacy fence, we replaced the trees with a series of freestanding timber-framed architectural panels and a space-saving barn-door entry gate.
