Meet Emma Driver a 2026 New England Home 5 Under 40 Winner

Portrait by Bruce Rogovin

Photograph by Keith LeBlanc

Photograph by Karen B. Davis

Photograph by Keith LeBlanc

Photograph by Karen B. Davis

It was a high school assignment that opened Emma Driver’s eyes to the idea of a career in landscape design. “I remember it as more of an agricultural assignment,” she says. “We had to design a garden.” Hers exceeded expectations. “I must have done really well,” she remembers, “because my teacher told me I could actually do garden design as a job.”

Now thirty-one and a senior associate at LeBlanc Jones Landscape Architects in Boston, Driver says she always knew she’d temper her analytical side: “I love math. But I love art, too,” she says.

She considered a science-driven career like medicine, but her parents had good instincts and helped her find a school where she could thrive. Driver graduated from the University of Rhode Island. She studied landscape architecture, plant science, and community planning, but these days she says she does a lot more planting than planning. “Our firm has commercial clients, but I do residential work almost exclusively,” she says.

Water inspires her. “I’m very lucky to be able to work on the Cape and in Rhode Island,” she says. Because so many of her projects are on or near the ocean, she’s learned a lot about how the coast functions. She naturally has conservation concerns: “In landscape architecture, we talk a lot about sense of place. It’s important to take a look around, to work within your environment.”

“I really love what I do,” she continues. At publication, she had one more exam to go to be a registered landscape architect in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Both Driver and her husband are from the Ocean State and are very close to their families. They’re restoring a home built in 1880 in Providence and spend summers in Little Compton, where Driver enjoys cultivating a cut flower garden.

This year’s 5 Under 40 awards ceremony will be held on September 17, 2026,  at The Galleria at 333 Stuart Street in Boston. The festivities will include food, drink, and the chance to catch up with old friends while making new ones. The highlight of the evening is the auction of five unique rugs designed by our 2026 winners and produced by Landry & Arcari Rugs and Carpeting, with all proceeds supporting SOLA (the School of Leadership, Afghanistan). Click here to purchase tickets.