Halprin opened his first
office in San Francisco in March, 1949. Most of his early commissions were for well-to-do private clients with small-scale gardens or backyards. The first project to include both site planning and architecture was for the parents of his wife, Anna, in Woodside, California. Completed in 1950, it was also his first of many collaborations with architect William Wurster. Four years later, Halprin鈥檚 own home in Kentfield, California (another collaboration with Wurster), was completed and became well-known and widely published. Halprin said it was 鈥渁 choreographed sequence of penetrations leading from the house, through the woods, down flights of steps to the Dance Deck below.鈥�
Laurie Olin, a landscape architect, educator, and author, has described this period as 鈥渙ne of enormous personal, intellectual, artistic, and professional growth鈥� for Halprin.
