Brier Creek’s estate homes and outdoor living
Brier Creek, in northwest Raleigh between the city and Research Triangle Park, includes some of the area’s larger homes, many of them in and around Brier Creek Country Club. Typical properties have stately facades, paver drives, crape myrtles and ornamental trees, and outdoor living areas built for entertaining, with patios, fire pits, seat walls, decks and garden paths.
The homes on this page show the range. One white two-story home is lit so the facade and trees glow in balance, without hot spots. This Brier Creek home is also featured in the book Masters of Landscape Lighting. Out back, a paver walk leads to Adirondack chairs, and seat wall lights set the mood around the fire pit. In the garden, darkness is left between focal points so the path feels calm.
Lite Visions does one thing, landscape lighting, and we treat the front of the house and the outdoor rooms behind it as two different experiences. Every fixture is warm 2700K, and the shadows are part of the design.
A Brier Creek home, featured in Masters of Landscape Lighting
How Joe designs: front of house and backstage
Joe Yanulevich, a Raleigh native, spent more than 35 years working in the concert and stage lighting industry. He designed lighting for regional bands including the Embers, Nantucket and Glassmoon, ran lights for opening acts on national tours, and toured as a lighting technician with Alan Jackson, Tim McGraw, Whitney Houston, Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Joan Jett.
A theater has two worlds: the stage everyone sees, and the backstage where people actually live and work. A Brier Creek home has the same split. The front is your public face, and Joe lights it to look composed and welcoming from the street, with balanced light on the architecture and the trees that frame it. Behind the house is where you live, so there the lighting is about comfort: soft light at seating height, step lights on the deck stairs so nobody misses a step, and a glow around the fire pit that keeps the night sky visible above it.
In both places, Joe keeps the light below eye level wherever he can, so guests see the patio, the plantings and each other, not the fixtures. He earned awards at the 2023 Sterling Lighting Summit Lighting Design Challenge.
All of the photos above, including the home at the top of this page, were taken at homes in Brier Creek.
Featured in Masters of Landscape Lighting
The white two-story home at the top of this page is Joe’s Brier Creek work as it appears in Masters of Landscape Lighting. These additional project photos from the book show the same approach: purposeful shadows, warm 2700K light and an ambient atmosphere you notice before you notice the fixtures.
See more of Joe’s work
Browse the full landscape lighting portfolio, or start at the Lite Visions home page to learn more about Joe. For a closer look at how he thinks about light, read why great lighting needs darkness and why great lighting is composed, not installed.
Nearby, we also design lighting in North Ridge, Wakefield and Treyburn. For neighborhood pages across the Triangle, see North Raleigh and Falls Lake.
Questions we hear in Brier Creek
What does landscape lighting cost?
Most Lite Visions projects start at about $4,500. The final number depends on the size of the property and how many areas you want to light. A larger design can be installed in phases: start with the scenes you’ll enjoy most, and add the rest when you’re ready.
Will my lighting be warm white, or can it change color?
Warm 2700K white is our standard. It flatters brick, stone, bark and foliage, and it gives a home a relaxed, natural glow. Color-changing lighting is available as an option if you’d like to change the look for holidays, seasons or game days, and it can return to warm white whenever you want.
How is the lighting controlled and maintained?
Your lighting can be set to come on at dusk and turn off at the time you choose, so you don’t have to think about it. As trees and plantings grow, fixtures can be adjusted to keep each scene looking right. Joe personally designs every system and is available to take care of you if anything ever comes up.
Start with a daytime design consultation
Every project begins with a daytime design consultation: a conversation and a walk around your property, with no pressure. Joe will listen to how you use your home in the evening, look at what makes your Brier Creek property special, and talk you through what’s possible.
Schedule Your Daytime Design Consultation
Prefer to talk first? Call Joe at Nine one Nine-518-9950, or email litevisionsrdu@gmail.com.
Please have a look through our website and see what makes Lite Visions different.