LEA

Associate Designer & Project Manager

Lea grew up in the wide-open spaces of Wyoming, hiking, skiing, painting, and generally marveling at the natural beauty of it all. Her mother designed skiwear; her father ran a t-shirt screen-printing shop before moving into jewelry design, allowing Lea to apprentice as a silversmith. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Arizona in 2012, with a concentration in metal sculpture. While she reveled in the extremes of the desert, she loved the water too much to stay there forever. Her desire to combine the sculptural arts with a lifelong fascination with plants led her to the University of Florida, where she graduated with a Masters of Landscape Architecture in 2018. Lea interned with CRLA while in school and moved to Key West to take a full-time position in 2018. As of 2022 Lea works from a sunny plant-filled remote office in Chicago. 

“I like to take my design and planting clues from the natural world. But I also love a strong, clean line,” says Lea. “My favorite projects are the one that allow the two forces to play off one another other.”

Lea loves plants of all kinds but holds a special fondness for edible gardening. When not working or bemoaning the lack of native plant questions at the local pub quiz, she enjoys digging in the dirt, crafting meals from locally grown and caught ingredients, and volunteering with community gardens.

Favorite Plant?

My favorite plant is a coconut palm. They are beautiful, tough, graceful, resilient, useful, calming, a little bit dangerous. Just amazing in every way. And delicious to boot! All the things I strive to be.