Modern Hillside: A tiered retaining wall & terrace build

The Brief

West Kelowna’s bench neighbourhoods — Lakeview Heights, Glenrosa, Rose Valley, and the slopes climbing up from the lake — are full of properties like this one: a sloped backyard where usable, level space is in short supply. Homeowners on these lots typically come to us with the same goal, get more flat, functional ground out of a steep grade, stop soil and mulch from washing downhill every spring, and turn what feels like a liability into a space they’ll actually use for seating, planting, or entertaining.

The Approach

Grading in West Kelowna is shaped by the terrain itself — the city sits on a series of benches and rocky escarpments above Okanagan Lake, and many backyards drop several feet from the house pad to the property line. Rather than one tall retaining wall, a tiered or terraced approach is often the better long-term solution on lots like this: shorter walls stacked in steps carry less lateral soil pressure per structure, drain more predictably, and read as intentional landscape architecture rather than a single imposing barrier. We also factor in the region’s hot, dry summers and light annual precipitation when planning drainage behind the wall face and choosing what gets planted in the new terraces, since Okanagan clay and rocky subsoil don’t always drain the way homeowners expect.

What We Built

Projects of this type are engineered with proper compacted base, gravel backfill, and drainage behind every course, then finished with a segmental retaining wall block or natural stone face selected to suit the home’s architecture and the slope’s exposure. Each terrace is capped and leveled to create real usable ground, whether that’s a lawn pad, a paver seating area, or a planting bed, and the newly created flat zones are often finished with low-water xeriscape planting suited to the site’s sun exposure and soil. The result is a hillside that stops fighting the homeowner and starts working for them, more square footage, less erosion, and a backyard that finally matches the rest of the home.

If you’re facing a similar slope, learn more about our Retaining Walls and Xeriscaping & Planting Design services, see what else we’ve built around West Kelowna, or browse more completed work in Our Projects.