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Joel Loblaw is the founder and principal of Joel Loblaw Inc., a Toronto based landscape design and build studio launched in 2011, and a longtime friend of the show. Born in Chicago, Joel moved to Toronto with his family at age five and grew up in the city's Beaches neighbourhood, where camping trips to Algonquin Park starting at age ten rooted a lifelong connection to the outdoors, one he still returns to through backcountry canoe trips and portages. He ran a student lawn cutting business as a teenager and backpacked around Europe after high school before entering landscape architecture at what was then Ryerson University as a mature student, drawing on prior construction work in stonework.
Joel built his early career at Park Lane, led by Landscape Ontario founding figure Casey van Maris, before becoming a founding principal of Earth Inc., a Toronto landscape firm he helped lead for thirteen years with colleagues James Dale and Kennedy McRae, shaped on design by Lorne Hancock, the trio behind the HGTV series Dirty Business. In 2011 he launched his own studio, later joined by his sister and business partner, Lindsy Gregory. His work is grounded in balance, scale and proportion, evolving from traditional design toward a modern practice shaped by travel to gardens across Europe, including the model gardens of Piet Oudolf and Mien Ruys in the Netherlands. Lighting and the integration of art and sculpture, drawn from his own painting practice, recur throughout his work, recently informed by Italian architect Stefano Pujatti of ElasticoSPA.
Joel lives with his wife, Michelle, a fine arts graduate and furniture designer, and their two sons near Meaford, Ontario, on a ten acre property with a trout pond and a home designed by architect Brian O'Brian. He recently bought an adobe house in West Texas, driving home in a manual transmission 1993 Ford F-150, a trip we talked about doing together - but timing didn't work out. Beyond the work, Joel is known as a steady confidant, someone turned to for honest conversation about business and the pull of the outdoors, and above all a devoted family man, and a friendship built over years of shared stories and mutual respect.
Upcoming Episode:
Sponsors:
Caplan's Appliances
The Doors
To connect with our sponsors, email me: jonathan@issuedforconstruction.ca
Issued For Construction
