Lighting built for Mendham's long driveways, wooded lots and stone-and-clapboard houses — designed for properties where there are no streetlights to help.
The thing that separates Mendham from almost everywhere else we work is how genuinely dark it gets. Much of the Borough and nearly all of the Township have no street lighting at all. On an overcast night with no moon, a house set two hundred feet back behind mature trees simply disappears — and so does the driveway you're trying to walk up with an armful of groceries.
That changes what good lighting has to do here. In a town with streetlights, landscape lighting is decoration. In Mendham it is also the only thing telling you where the driveway edge is, where the step down to the walk is, and whether anyone is standing near the garage.
Real darkness means you need far less light than people expect. Your eyes adapt. A fixture that looks subtle under a streetlight is glaring on an unlit Mendham lane, so we run lower lumen packages here and lean on more fixtures at lower output rather than fewer bright ones. The goal is that you never see a light source — only what it lands on.
The other Mendham constant is distance. Driveways here routinely run one to three hundred feet, often curving through trees, and the house sits well off the road. That means voltage drop is a real engineering problem, not a footnote: we size the wire gauge and place transformers to hold consistent voltage at the far end, or the fixtures at the top of the drive run dim and amber while the ones near the garage run bright. We also light the approach in stages so the house reveals itself as you come up the drive, instead of appearing all at once.
Staged lighting along the long, curving driveways typical of Mendham — edges, turns and the arrival at the house.
Learn MoreGrazing for the dry-stacked walls, barns and carriage houses that give Mendham properties their character.
Learn MoreUplighting and canopy moonlighting for the mature hardwoods on wooded Mendham and Brookside lots.
Learn MoreFixed price, in writing, after a free on-site consultation. No hourly billing and no trip charges.
$1,800–$2,400
6–8 fixtures · front elevation
$3,000–$4,500
10–15 fixtures · facade, beds & walkway
$5,000–$7,500
16–25 fixtures · whole property
From $249/yr
Keeps it looking like night one
Mendham Borough and Mendham Township (ZIP 07945, 07926), including Brookside and Ralston, plus Chester, Bernardsville and the surrounding Morris County communities.
Yes — throughout Mendham Borough and Mendham Township, including Brookside and Ralston, and across Morris County.
It's a design consideration, not a problem. Long runs lose voltage, so we size wire gauge for the actual distance and place transformers to keep output consistent end to end. Without that, fixtures at the far end run visibly dimmer and warmer than the ones near the house.
Less than you'd think. Your eyes adapt to genuine darkness, so we use lower output and more placements rather than a few bright fixtures. Done right you never see the source — only the house, the trees and the driveway edges.
Yes, and they're often the best feature on a property here. Board-and-batten and stone both take grazing light extremely well, and an outbuilding lit at low level gives the whole lot depth instead of a single bright house surrounded by black.
Free on-site design consultation. We walk the property, tell you what's worth lighting, and hand you a fixed price in writing.