How Ben Himschoot Brings Privacy, Polish, and Problem-Solving to Chicago’s Urban Outdoor Spaces
Connecting people with exquisite landscapes
Most of the outdoor spaces we feature here have room to roam: sprawling suburban lots, lakefront decks, coastal retreats. Himsben Design Studio works at the other end of the spectrum.
From a restored historic storefront on Chicago’s North Side, landscape architect Benjamin Himschoot and his team design backyards, rooftop terraces, and courtyards for city dwellers with neighbors on every side and no square foot to waste. The results are clean, modern, and deeply personal, and they make a strong case that small spaces deserve serious design.
Rooted in the Dirt
Ben grew up on Pine Island, off the coast of Fort Myers, Florida, in a family that has always worked the land. His great-grandfather was a gardener who planted avocado and mango groves on the island, and his father ran an excavation company.
After college, Ben joined his father’s business, which graded house pads, cut in driveways, and regraded yards for new construction. His father saw an opening: every client whose yard they tore up needed someone to put it back and make it beautiful. So Ben bought a lawnmower and started cutting grass.
He turned the lawnmower into a landscape company, which he ran for about four years. What hooked him was the transformation: hearing a client’s idea, then watching it come to life. To do that at a higher level, he went back to school and earned a master’s degree in landscape architecture from the University of Florida.
Big Projects, Big Lessons
About 14 years ago, Ben moved to Chicago. He spent four years running the residential design-build portfolio for a landscape firm just over the Wisconsin border, then joined Christy Webber Landscapes, the Chicago firm behind work at Millennium Park and The 606, and the crew that restores Grant Park’s lawns after Lollapalooza.
He rose to design principal, serving as landscape architect of record for the Chicago Bears’ practice facility expansion in Lake Forest and working on the Blackhawks’ practice facility. The scale was exciting. The distance from the work was not.
“In such a large firm, there were probably seven or eight different people between me as the designer and the guys actually putting the work together in the field. There was always some ball that got dropped, some miscommunication along the way. I really missed having closer contact and more control over the end result.” -Benjamin Himschoot, Himsben Design Studio
A Leap of Faith (and Very Good Timing)
Ben launched Himsben Design Studio as a side business in 2017 and went full-time in 2019. Then 2020 arrived, and for about two weeks he wondered whether he’d walked away from a secure job with benefits for a company with no future.
The opposite happened. With vacations canceled and everyone stuck at home, Chicagoans started looking hard at their backyards, and Himsben grew by double digits year after year. When demand leveled off around 2023 and 2024, Ben chose not to chase volume. He keeps the studio small enough that he still knows every client by first name and every project by heart. Bigger, as he puts it, isn’t always better.
Designing for the Postage-Stamp Yard
Most Himsben projects sit on city lots, and that changes everything.
“Every square inch of outdoor space in the city is limited, so anyone who’s lucky enough to have a roof terrace or a backyard really values it. And because the winters are so harsh, spring is like the floodgates open. Everyone’s just dying to be outside.” -Benjamin Himschoot, Himsben Design Studio
Those clients want privacy most, and in Chicago it’s hard to come by. Step into almost any backyard and you have neighbors on both sides and windows looking down at you.
The climate is just as demanding. Temperatures swing from 30 below to 104 degrees, and a single lot can hold a cold, wet north side and a rooftop that bakes all summer. After moving north from Florida, Ben had to relearn his entire plant palette, and every material he specifies has to survive those extremes.
Then there’s the water. With so much pavement and so little open ground, stormwater has nowhere to go, and older homes often end up as the low point on the block. Ben’s toolkit includes rain gardens, French drains, bioswales, and dry wells, often tucked out of sight. For one family whose yard turned to mud every time it rained, his team installed synthetic turf over a deep drainage layer, giving the kids and dogs a clean place to play.
“You can’t be that guy and dump all the water on your neighbor. And we can’t just dump everything into the storm sewer system, because we’re already having a lot of issues with capacity here in the city. Finding solutions for that is something I actually enjoy. It’s a blend of art and science.” -Benjamin Himschoot, Himsben Design Studio
Clean Lines, Softened by Nature
Ben’s own taste leans modern: simple, clean, and edited, softened by layers of plants. He draws on Japanese gardens and Scandinavian design, and counts Iceland, with its wild landscapes and spare architecture, among his favorite places. He also brings a skill most landscape architects don’t. He learned to weld in his father’s workshop, so he designs and fabricates the studio’s steel sculptures, screens, and shade structures.
But his style rarely leads. Every project starts with a short phone call to see whether Himsben is the right fit, followed by a site visit that feels more like an interview. Who lives here? How many people do you host? Full outdoor kitchen, or a grill and more seating? Classic and symmetrical, or modern and loose? Ben studies a client’s interiors for clues, then walks the site measuring sightlines from the alley, checking for basement water, and noting glaring streetlights and microclimates.
The best results come when Himsben is invited in early. On the studio’s Hyde Park Dream Home, the architect, interior designer, and landscape team collaborated from day one, rather than treating the yard as an afterthought to be made green and pretty at the end.
The Crew Behind the Craft
Ben is emphatic that the credit is shared. When he launched Himsben in 2017, he partnered with brothers Jose and Antonio Rangel of JR Landscaping #1 Inc., and the two companies have grown side by side ever since. JR is Himsben’s exclusive installer, with in-house crews for carpentry, hardscape, planting, lighting, and irrigation.
The arrangement works because each side does what it does best. Himsben brings in the projects, creates the plans, and manages every job, from marketing and design through pricing, contracting, and construction documents, then hands the Rangels’ crews a complete package to build. Clients get one contract and one point of contact. Ben gets the close connection to the field he missed at the big firm, without the trucks, trailers, and blown hydraulic hoses he remembers from his own landscaping days.
“Without the help of these very talented artisans and their crews, we would not be able to create the landscapes that we do. They are the expert craftsmen who make everything look so absolutely amazing.” -Benjamin Himschoot, Himsben Design Studio
Acurio Lattice for Urban Privacy
With privacy near the top of nearly every wish list, Ben is always hunting for screening options. He first found Acurio lattice at Home Depot and ordered it there for a couple of years before learning he could work with Acurio directly and access far more than the few stock items on store shelves.
“I was really impressed with the customer service. Very personable. And knowing that there’s almost infinite possibilities, ranges of sizes, and everything’s made to order, that’s really cool.” -Benjamin Himschoot, Himsben Design Studio
Today, Himsben uses Acurio panels most often for privacy screening and under-deck skirting, giving tight city yards a sense of enclosure that fits the studio’s clean, modern aesthetic.
What’s Next
Himsben has started adding swimming pools, with six pool clients signed at the time of our interview. The studio works with manufacturers including Soake Pools, whose compact precast concrete models (the largest is 7 by 13 feet) fit small city backyards. Because they’re insulated and compact, they can be used year-round, which is almost unheard of in Chicago.
It’s a fitting next chapter for a studio that has built its reputation on getting the most out of every square foot.
Himsben Design Studio is based at 6136 N. Clark St. in Chicago and serves the city and surrounding communities. If you’re ready to make the most of your outdoor space, get in touch with Ben and his team.
