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Your Landscape Deserves Better Than Generic
Garden & Pathway Lighting for Historic Homes
Your gardens don’t disappear at sunset—or at least they shouldn’t. These low-voltage landscape lights provide consistent, reliable illumination for pathways while highlighting the plantings, water features, and garden rooms you’ve invested in over time. Crafted from solid brass and designed for historic architecture, these fixtures are meant to be seen, not hidden—and installed for life, not replaced every few years.
Choose Your Favorite Style for Your Landscaping
Classic Garden Lights
Classic, solid roof lights represent time-tested landscape lighting in three forms: domed, flared, or pyramidal. These workhorses create predictable six-foot diameter light circles, making it easy to plan gap-free pathway illumination or strategic accent lighting. The solid roofs prevent light pollution upward, keeping illumination focused where you need it. Customize with decorative finials for subtle personalization.
Artistic & Angled Garden Lights
Artistic garden lights feature decorative filigree in their pyramidal tops—designed to be visible and attractive during daylight, becoming focal points themselves rather than hiding. Angled pathway lights provide discrete illumination with slim profiles that recede into landscapes, allowing you to highlight features—planters, water features, architectural elements—while the fixtures themselves stay background players.
Garden Lanterns
Featuring the widest range of decorative options—floral patterns, nature vignettes, architectural geometry—this style lets you coordinate with your planting themes. Garden lanterns offer full-bodied forms available in two mounting styles: bottom-mounted posts or top-mounted shepherd's crook arms. Post-mounted versions spread light evenly in all directions, curved-arm versions focus light downward and away from the fixture.
Landscaping Lighting that Enhances Rather Than Intrudes
Your landscaping represents months (maybe years?) of planning, planting and patience. Why illuminate it with fixtures that look like cheap afterthoughts? Most landscape lighting falls into two categories: cheap plastic stakes that break within a couple seasons, or industrial-looking metal cans that scream 'contractor's special.' Neither does justice to your gardens.
These low-voltage garden lights take a different approach. Handcrafted from solid brass with artistic details ranging from exposed joinery to whimsical creatures, they become part of your landscape's composition during daylight hours while providing functional illumination after dark.
Whether you're lighting pathways for safety, highlighting specimen plantings for drama or creating ambient glow for your outdoor dining and entertaining, these fixtures serve your purpose without apologizing for their presence.
Why Your Gardens & Walkways Deserve Old California's Lighting
Lifetime Warranty on Brass Construction
Plastic landscape lights crack and fade within years. Cheap metal corrodes and dents. Our garden lights are handcrafted from solid brass—the same material that survives centuries on historic architecture. The substantial construction and quality materials are backed by lifetime warranty against defects. This is the last landscape lighting you'll ever buy, developing character alongside your gardens rather than becoming replacement projects.
Highly Customizable
Your garden isn't cookie-cutter, so your lighting shouldn't be either. Old Penny finish arrives as bright copper, developing unique patina based on your climate. New Verde offers instant aged appearance. Textured black or bronze powder coats provide weather-resistant color that coordinates with your home or recedes into landscaping. Beyond finishes, choose from dozens of filigree patterns—floral motifs, wildlife designs, or geometric patterns. Mix styles and heights to create compositions as unique as your landscape.
Low Maintenace
Your gardens demand enough attention without adding finicky lighting to the maintenance list. These fixtures require occasional wipedown—that's it. No complicated electronics, no fragile parts, no seasonal winterization. The robust brass construction and quality LED components provide reliable illumination season after season while you focus on the plants, not the fixtures lighting them.
I’ve been a fan of Old California Lighting for years. We bought a porch light and mailbox from them that we love, so when it came time to add landscape lighting, we knew where to start. I wasn’t sure which finish to choose, so I called to ask for advice—and I’m so glad I did. I didn’t realize that the Old Penny finish naturally patinas to a dark brown, similar to the New Verde. When the fixtures first arrived, they were a bright brass (just as described), which made me a little nervous. But the team had assured me they would weather beautifully within a few months. In fact, they developed a gorgeous patina in just a few weeks—even though we live inland. The lights are perfect, the quality is outstanding, and I couldn’t be happier with the result.
Why We Don't Offer Solar Options
You've probably noticed we don't offer solar garden lights. That's deliberate. Current solar technology requires cheaper materials to stay affordable—they often become brittle and discolored within two or three years. Solar panels lose efficiency over time, batteries need replacement every couple years (or less), and cloudy weeks mean dim or dead lights when you need them most.
Equally important, solar fixtures don't match your historic home's aesthetic. The visible solar panels, bulky battery compartments, and cheaper construction create a distinctly modern, utilitarian appearance that clashes with period architecture. Your historic home deserves garden lighting that honors its era, not fixtures that say ‘21st- Century compromise.’
We build garden lighting from solid brass with a lifetime warranty because it lasts generations. Your low-voltage system requires wiring once, then provides reliable illumination for decades. That's the investment your landscape and your architecture deserve.
Inspiration Gallery
Keeping Your Garden Lighting Beautiful
Brass fixtures in landscapes require minimal maintenance while providing maximum durability. Wipe fixtures down monthly with a damp cloth to remove pollen, dust, and debris—this takes minutes. If you've chosen living finishes like Old Penny, embrace the patina development rather than fighting it. The changing appearance is part of the beauty, reflecting your garden's specific conditions and your fixture's unique aging process.
LED bulbs mean you'll rarely replace them—when you eventually do, access is simple. The solid brass construction handles weather extremes, from tropical humidity to desert heat to northern winters. These fixtures are designed for decades of service with minimal fuss, letting you focus on your plants rather than your lighting. The lifetime warranty means any material or workmanship issues get addressed—this is genuinely the last landscape lighting you'll need to buy.
Frequently Asked Questions
How far apart should I space my garden and pathway lights?
It depends on the results you're looking for. Do you want the pools of light to be separated or overlap?
When using the standard installation methods, the fixtures create a pool of light roughly six feet in diameter (on flat ground). If you want the pools of light to connect, you'll need to space the fixtures roughly six feet apart or less. If you want separation between the pools of light, the placement distance is up to you. Exception for Walkway Lights: The hooked fixtures we call ‘walkway lights’ are angled to provide a smaller, directed wash of light. They produce more of a spotlight effect, with roughly a two-foot diameter wash of light designed to highlight specific areas.
Can I customize the height of my garden and pathway lights?
Yes, you have a couple of options. If you want them to be shorter than standard, you can bury them a bit deeper when installing. Or, if you want a specific height customization, we can make a special production run with a custom fee.
What is the difference between a spotlight and a floodlight?
Spotlights create a narrower beam of light and are used to highlight a specific detail or location on your property, like a tree, columns, or decorative elements like statues.
Floodlights create a wash of light useful for illuminating a larger area like walls, tree canopies, and broader landscaping features.
Where do I mount my transformer?
It needs to be installed near an outdoor electrical outlet and mounted at least 12" off the ground.