Fernando Wong Outdoor Living Design

Fernando Wong arrived in America from Panama and learned English from watching South Park. He dug ditches with a shovel.

Today, he’s 48, fluent in English, and busy directing shovels. Fernando Wong Outdoor Living Design has offices in Miami, Palm Beach and the Hamptons, and has jobs all over. 

“I was able to draw,” he said modestly over lunch at the Colony with his partner Tim Johnson. “It opened my eyes.” 

Fernando Wong and Tim Johnson
(Photos courtesy of Fernando Wong Outdoor Living Design)

One of Wong’s bigger jobs was landscaping the Four Seasons Hotel at the Surf Club in Miami, where he covered the empty nine acres on the ocean with 240 palms, 250 shade trees, nine sea-grapes, each 20-feet wide, and a nine-story kapok. 

Wong would have even more work if developers and homeowners realized the value of outdoor design. 

“Some people are willing to spend, but it’s not always applicable to living things,” Wong said diplomatically. 

He prefers clients like the couple who bought a house on South Ocean Blvd. in Palm Beach. 

“I had one meeting with the clients. Two years later they saw the finished result, and cried with joy,” Wong said. 

Wong creates 3-D presentations, incorporating seasonal color and constant recalibrations, to show clients. “It’s more dynamic what we do,” he said. 

These days, in a reversal of normal practice, clients come to him first and then he recommends an architect.

Design by Fernando Wong Outdoor Living Design.