Not long ago, the owners of a large property in Pelican Bay presented landscape architect Max Gooding with a challenge: They had transformed their Mediterranean-style home into a modern sanctuary, and they needed the house to have an equally show-stopping exterior. They wanted clean lines and a monochromatic palette of green tinged with white, but they also sought more traditional materials to avoid a sterile feel. After several rounds of interviews and site visits, they were convinced the Naples- raised plantsman could deliver.
The couple had come to Gooding, as so many clients do, because of his background as a fine artist, his fresh take on the craft and his reputation as one of Southwest Florida’s brightest up-and-comers. Before he founded his landscape design firm in his twenties, Gooding, now 37, made a living as a painter. For him, moving to gardens wasn’t much of a leap. “Instead of marble or wood or some sort of carving, I use the plants, the garden walls, the water to bring those all together—to make a painting that you’re living in,” he says.
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Photography by Dan Cutrona
Backyard with pool and palm trees HOME 2026
Before launching his landscape design firm, the 37-year-old worked as a painter. His artistic instincts still drive his process. He designs from the inside out, mapping sightlines so each room frames an intentional vignette outdoors.
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Photography by Dan Cutrona
Outdoor greenery design HOME 2026
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Photography by Dan Cutrona
Outdoor living with grill and pool HOME 2026
It’s a different approach from the rigid and unnatural landscapes Gooding saw growing up in Naples during the 1990s. “Everybody followed that Tuscan style,” he remembers. “It was just thoughtless color. It was man over nature.” But when Gooding’s plant-obsessed father and stepmother bought a new house in 1991, they took a different tack, seeking out rare orchids, bromeliads and fruit trees. With their son’s help (and, he muses, a lot of his physical labor), the Goodings turned their suburban lawn into a subtropical oasis over the next 30 years. Gooding developed an appreciation for the personal relationship with each species that attentive gardening requires. The 3-foot tall lychee sapling his father purchased when he was 5 years old, for example, grew to over 45 feet by the time he graduated from college. When it had to be removed, Gooding felt a pang of sadness.
By then, he was immersed in the world of drawing and painting, having studied art through high school and community college, and he had gained enough recognition to regularly sell his work. His fascination with the colors and textures of plants never left him, though. He felt that the principles informing his artwork—line, shape, form, color, texture, value and space—could be equally applied to outdoor spaces. Soon, he began pursuing a degree in landscape architecture at the University of Florida.
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Photography by Dan Cutrona
Exterior rendering greenery HOME 2026
Gooding’s landscapes rely on tonal greens—subtle shifts in leaf shape, density and silhouette—to create depth without visual clutter. “There are a million different shades of green,” he says. “You can play a symphony if you use them right.”
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Courtesy Max Gooding
Landscape Architect Max Gooding HOME 2026
Gooding’s fine arts training shows in his process, which begins with him studying sight lines and views, and mapping microclimates and light patterns to ensure the plants thrive where he places them. Then, he sketches his vision by hand using digital software. He also photographs the existing property as it is and digitally paints over the images to test ideas: Which areas need a focal point? Which should be left alone? “I’m able to trim trees with my paintbrush and show them what they could have,” Gooding adds.
To the uninitiated, his answers can be counterintuitive. Clients who live on the water sometimes recoil at the thought of placing palms between them and the Gulf.
Gooding has to assure them he’s framing their view, not blocking it. “I hold up a pen in front of my face and say, ‘Can you still see me?’” he explains. He welcomes feedback at every phase, building in 30 to 50 hours for ongoing discussions. “My clients are never a bother to me,” he says. He tries to answer on the first ring.
Then come the hardscaping elements—namely, pools and driveways—since they require permitting. Bespoke fountains, water features, lighting and fire pits are next. “Nothing is boilerplate,” Gooding says. “Nothing is reused from other jobs.” (If there is one trend he cannot abide, it’s a pre-fab fire bowl.)
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Photography by Dan Cutrona
Pelican Bay poolscape HOME 2026
His approach is as shaped by his artistry as by his father, who rejected the saturated Tuscan palettes of ’90s Naples in favor of Florida-friendly plantings. For this Pelican Bay project, Gooding paired crisp hardscape with layered foliage to create a calm but dimensional poolscape.
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Courtesy Max Gooding
Poolscape drawing HOME 2026
Though he’s always thinking about plant selection, he fine-tunes the plantings in the last stage. For color, he likes working with tonal, high-contrast vegetation. “There are a million different shades of green,” he says. “You can play a symphony if you use them right.” He also considers texture, shape and contrast. Fine grasses, for example, pair well with philodendrons, which have large, wide leaves. Lilies and low palms temper coarser plant materials.
With every project, he aims to create a sense of containment, a landscape that immediately feels like its own world once you step onto the property. To accomplish that, he designs from the inside out to shape what the homeowners will see from every room, focusing on creating cohesion. “I can invent every aspect of the property to talk to each other,” he explains. “[For example,] every time I design a pool, I’m already thinking of the type of palms.”
When the time comes to do the digging and hauling for a project installation, Gooding takes pride in his hands-on philosophy. “I’m out there with a cowboy hat,” he says. “I’m not gonna sit there and let other people work; I’ll swing containers. I’m not afraid to get dirty."
Throughout, he lets the site’s ecology lead the design, working with, not against, the environment to create immersive gardens that, yes, grow and change, but ultimately stand the test of time. The care he puts into his designs won’t be fully realized for three, four or five years—maybe more. Likewise, the landscapes that are fully mature today reflect the designer he was five years ago, and he’s never afraid to edit what no longer holds. He refers to landscape architecture as a long art form. “You just have to trust the process,” he says.
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Photography by Dan Cutrona
Exterior rendering HOME 2026
Clad in a cowboy hat, Gooding stays hands-on during installations, shaping each space into its own contained world. “Instead of marble or wood or some sort of carving, I use the plants, the garden walls, the water,” he says.
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Photography by Dan Cutrona
White poolscape HOME 2026