Architectural Lighting Company
Architectural Lighting In Westchester County, NY
NY Landscape Lighting designs and installs architectural lighting for homes across Westchester County, and outdoor lighting is the only thing we do. Since 2005 we have lit stone facades, entries, columns, gables, and rooflines so the house itself reads at night instead of disappearing behind a lit lawn. Call (914) 962-2095 or request a free on-site design consultation.
Architectural Lighting · Westchester County, NY
Facade lighting in Westchester County, designed on your own house at night.
We light the stone, brick, shingle, and trim of the house so the architecture still reads after dark. That means grazing texture, holding light off the windows, and keeping the beam under the eave line rather than washing the whole wall flat.
We build the design on site, at night, before anything is installed. You see the actual light on your actual stone before you approve a proposal. Our crew works out of Mount Kisco, a short drive from most of the county.
About NY Landscape Lighting
Why Westchester County Homeowners Choose NY Landscape Lighting
Most companies quoting architectural lighting in Westchester are landscapers or electricians who add lighting as a side service. We are not. Lighting is the whole business, and has been since 2005.
That gap shows up fastest on a facade. A house wall is a large, flat, reflective surface, and it is the one thing you look at from the street, the driveway, and every front window. Aim a stock floodlight at it and you get a hot spot, a bright fixture in the sightline, and glare bouncing back through the glass. Getting it right takes beam angle, shielding, and mounting decisions a generalist rarely makes.
We design the system on site, at night, before anything is installed. You approve what you have already seen lit.
We also service what we install. Aiming drifts, connections corrode, and trees grow into beams, and we stay with the system after the install is done.
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Our Architectural Lighting Services
What We Light On The House
Architectural lighting for homes is about the structure, not the yard. These are the elements we light on a typical Westchester property.
Stone and brick facades. Grazing fixtures set close to the wall pull texture out of the joints instead of flattening the surface with a wide flood.
The front entry and portico. The single highest-value target on the house, and the one most often lit with a fixture aimed straight at the door.
Columns, pilasters, and porch posts. Narrow-beam uplights hold the light on the column rather than spilling onto the siding behind it.
Gables, dormers, and rooflines. Lighting the upper structure gives the house height at night. Done wrong it lights the sky, so beam control matters more here than anywhere else.
Chimneys and stone chimney stacks. A tall vertical element that anchors the whole elevation once it is lit.
Garage bays, courtyards, and motor courts. The area people actually arrive in, and usually the darkest part of a Westchester front elevation.
Soffits and eaves. Downlighting from the structure creates usable light on walkways and steps without any fixture visible from the street.
Specimen trees framing the house. The mature canopy sets the frame, and we design it as part of the broader landscape lighting in Westchester County plan for the property.
Common Architectural Lighting Techniques We Use
Uplighting, Grazing, Washing, And Downlighting
Four techniques cover most residential facade work. Which one we use depends on the material and the distance we have to work with.
Grazing. The fixture sits tight to the wall and throws light almost straight up the face. This is what makes fieldstone, brick, and rough stucco look three dimensional. It is the default on most older Westchester stone houses.
Washing. The fixture sits further back and lays an even sheet of light across the surface. Better on smooth painted siding, shingle, and stucco where grazing would only exaggerate imperfections.
Uplighting focal elements. Tight beams on columns, chimneys, and gable peaks. Used sparingly, because lighting every element equally reads as a commercial building rather than a home.
Downlighting from the structure. Shielded fixtures mounted in soffits, eaves, and high tree limbs cast light down the way moonlight does. No visible source, no glare from the porch chairs.
We also install permanent roofline lighting where a homeowner wants a year-round architectural line on the roof edge plus programmable holiday color. That is a different system from facade lighting and we quote it separately.
Exterior Home Lighting Design In Westchester County
Design Process
Every system starts with a night design visit, not a fixture count. We come out after dark with demo fixtures and light the house in front of you.
We walk the approach first, because the front elevation is seen from the road at 25 mph, from the driveway at walking pace, and from inside the front rooms looking out. Those three viewpoints often want different answers, and a plan drawn in daylight rarely accounts for all of them.
Then we set fixtures temporarily and adjust aim, beam angle, and shielding on the actual wall. You approve the look you have already seen. Nothing is trenched or mounted until that point.
Installs are low voltage. Cable runs are buried, transformer locations are chosen to stay out of sight, and every fixture is adjustable so we can re-aim as plantings mature.
Towns We Serve in Westchester County
We install architectural and exterior home lighting throughout Westchester County, including Mount Kisco, Bedford, Chappaqua, Armonk, Scarsdale, Larchmont, Mamaroneck, Harrison, Bronxville, Katonah, Pound Ridge, North Salem, Somers, South Salem, Croton on Hudson, Rye, White Plains, New Rochelle, Purchase, Irvington, Ardsley, Briarcliff, and Yorktown Heights.
We also install architectural lighting throughout Fairfield County, CT, including Greenwich, Darien, New Canaan, and Ridgefield.
Architectural Lighting FAQs
Will lighting the front of my house be too bright, or bother my neighbors?
We design to a low light level on purpose, and glare control is the first thing we solve on a facade. Every fixture gets shielding, a beam angle chosen for the target, and an aim that keeps the source out of your sightlines and off your neighbor’s windows. During the night demo you see the finished brightness before you approve anything, and we check the view from the road and the property line, not just from the front walk.
Do you have to drill into my stone or siding to mount the lights?
Most of our facade work is ground-mounted, so nothing goes into the wall at all. Where a downlight or a transformer does need a mounted point, we anchor into mortar joints rather than the face of the stone, and we choose locations that stay hidden. We tell you exactly where anything is going before we install it.
What color of light do you use on stone and brick?
We spec warm light in the 2700K to 3000K range and hold one color temperature across the whole system. Warmer light brings out the reds and browns in brick and fieldstone. Slightly cooler light suits grey stone, limestone, and modern surfaces without turning them yellow. The mistake we see most often on Westchester houses is mixed color temperatures from fixtures added in stages, which no amount of fixture quality can hide.
How much does architectural lighting cost in Westchester County?
A typical front-elevation facade system runs, and the number is driven by the width of the elevation, the number of focal elements, and the cable runs back to the transformer. We quote a fixed price after the night design visit, so you are not approving an estimate based on a guess. The design visit itself is free.
Can we light the front of the house now and add the rest later?
Yes, and we plan for it. We size the transformer with spare capacity and set cable runs so the back of the house, the pool area, or the driveway can be added later without re-trenching or replacing the panel. Phasing is common on larger Westchester properties and it does not cost you anything in system quality.
What is the difference between architectural lighting and landscape lighting?
Architectural lighting is the house. Landscape lighting is everything around it: trees, beds, walls, paths, and steps. Most of our projects include both, because a lit facade with a dark yard looks like a stage set and a lit yard with a dark house loses the main subject. We design them together and quote them as one system.