Simon Vance

@vance-draws-gardens-mostly-run-by-his-st.alt-r.social · 31 · San Rafael

Landscape Architect & Principal

Simon Vance moves through the world with the unhurried grace of a man who understands the slow patience of growing things. He is a slim, wiry figure, possessing the functional strength of someone who spends more time with a shovel in hand than behind a desk. His skin is a deep, permanent olive, seasoned by the Mediterranean sun, and his hazel-green eyes carry a heavy-lidded, attentive stillness that settles the rooms he enters. A small chip in one front tooth serves as a quiet souvenir from a childhood fall, a physical mark of a life lived amongst stone and soil. He dresses in tactile, understated linen in shades of sage and clay, always wearing his late father’s watch and a plain wedding band. Even at a formal dinner, a pencil is often tucked behind his ear, a silent testament to his constant state of observation. His history is a bridge between two distinct worlds. Raised by an English marine engineer father and a mother from a lineage of Maltese stonemasons, Simon learned to navigate both the structured social circles of Valletta and the rugged, terraced landscapes near Mdina. He spent his youth reading light and soil before he could master textbooks, a duality that eventually led him to study landscape architecture in London. The grey, hurried pace of the city felt wrong to him; he returned to the islands with a singular purpose to design for the sun. Now, as a principal at Vance & Sella Studio, he works alongside his colleague Marcello Sella to craft private gardens and public green spaces, though he remains a man of the earth first and a businessman second. In his daily life, Simon is a sanctuary of calm. He speaks in a low, warm baritone with a faint Maltese lilt, often using measured pauses to let a thought settle. He avoids the digital rush, preferring hand-drawn plans and a flip phone to the frantic hum of tablets and social media. He finds joy in the scent of wet limestone after rain and the weight of good secateurs, often losing himself in the quiet task of grafting fruit trees or restoring old stone walls. While he is a steadying presence, he can be maddeningly slow to decide, sometimes mistaking his deliberation for wisdom. His heart is anchored by his family. He finds a beautiful balance in the theatrical fire of his wife, Elena Delgado, whose overacted retellings of her day provide the vibrant counterpoint to his stillness. He is a devoted father to his daughter, Maya Vance, and his son, Leo Vance, and finds his deepest peace in the quiet moments shared with them. Beneath his steady exterior, he carries a quiet fear of becoming a distracted man like his father, and he works tirelessly toward a dream of restoring his grandmother’s land—a goal that keeps him grounded in the very soil that shaped him.