Twin cabanas offer pool-goers a private place to change clothes and a separate area for storing rafts and lounge chairs. Courtesy Summerwood Products.
GONE ARE THE DAYS when a yard with a lush lawn was enough towow the neighbors. Today, backyards are adult Disneylands. Homeowners are investing in outdoor structures—from simple gazebos to elaborate pool houses—to enhance their properties and extend their living space.
“I’ve been in the business for 25 years, and I can assure you that people like the idea of entertaining outdoors more than ever,” maintains Chris Peeples, owner of Vixen Hill, a company that specializes in structures made of western red cedar.“ Yards are becoming outdoor rooms.”
What’s driving the trend towards investments in outdoor living space?
“Our houses are the biggest investment most of us will ever make,” explains John Lyle, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Fire Stone, a company that creates technologically-based outdoor structures such as stainless fireplaces, campfire pits, pergolas, and weather-safe kitchen equipment. “People are traveling less now. They want to create a resort feel at home.”
It was precisely the resort feel that homeowner Andrew Evans was after when creating his pool house. “We own the Inn at Easton (a restaurant and inn on Maryland’s Eastern Shore),so we don’t have a lot of time to get away,” explains Evans. “We decided to bring the vacation home to ourselves by putting amenities in our own backyard.”
Utility First
Backyard structures run the gamut from small gazebos and pergolas to kitchens, fireplaces, bars, and spas. At first blush, the options are overwhelming.
When thinking about what to add to your own yard, assess how you currently use your backyard space and compare that to how you’d like to use it. Does the yard get too sunny and hot in summer? Then a shade-producing structure, like a pergola, might work. Do you have a pool that’s underused because no one wants to shuffle in and out of the house to change clothes? Then a pool house may be the way to go. Are you looking for a simple focal point to enliven your yard? Then a well-placed gazebo might do the trick.
Practical considerations should come first, stresses architect Christine Dayton, AIA, who recently designed a pump house to conceal and protect pool equipment. “I had to think through the storage and access to the equipment as well as aesthetics,” she says. In the end, Dayton’s design managed to roll the practical uses into a handsome 8’x 8’pump house.
Because Evans lives on a relatively small in-town lot, his pool house had to multi-task. In addition to a rest room and changing area, the building also includes a conservatory, kitchen, sleeping area, and one-car garage.
An outdoor kitchen complete with fireplace, grill, and refrigerator is protected by a cedar pergola. Courtesy Erin B. Bogan, McHale Landscape Company
Size Matters
The size of your yard should guide you in deciding what type of outdoor structures to consider. You don’t want to overwhelm a small piece of property with a massive structure nor do you want to underutilize a large space.
A hot trend for homeowners with large yards is the addition of multiple outdoor rooms, each with its own purpose, say, a sitting area, a recreational area, a cooking area, a kids’ play area, and a pool area.
Fire Stone recently introduced anew concept that blends this multi-functional concept into a single structure, which the company calls the “Outdoor Great Room.”
“People love their indoor great rooms, so why not bring that concept outside?” asks Lyle. The company designed a 14’ x 14’ x 8’resin pergola that can be anchored anywhere in the yard to create a “room.”
Homeowners with small yards aren’t out of luck. Look for structures that highlight an aspect of the property or provide a focal point. “Even if you have a little strip of land, you can add something like a campfire pit. For $600 you have a conversation piece,” says Lyle. Town homes with minimal property can even be enhanced by outdoor structures. “There’s no such thing as too small,” claims Don Barlow, President of Finyl Vinyl, a company that makes maintenance-free outdoor gazebo and pergola kits. “I’ve yet to see any yard that couldn’t benefit from as mall pergola to give it some interest.”
Location, Location, Location
Where you site a structure is just as important as which structure to choose. For Evans, whose home is on a small lot next to other historic homes, it was important that the pool house not overwhelm the neighborhood, so he set it towards the very back of his property line. “We had site elevations drawn up and a model built ahead of time, so we could see the scale,” he explains.
While many people like garden structures to be seen from their homes, that’s not always the most appropriate spot. Take Dayton’s pump house, which was purposefully sited away from the house, because she says, “It’s noisy, and you don’t want to hear it running all summer.”
Tanglewood Conservatories, a small company that custom designs and builds glass conservatories, finds most home-owners prefer conservatories that are attached to the main house. However, that’s not always so. “The best location depends on the natural and architectural features of the property,” says Alan Stein, co-owner of Tanglewood.
Stein has nestled a conservatory near the woods at one end of a client’s property for a quiet, private space and, in another yard, across a pond to pro-vide balance and harmony with a sister building.
Think about what you want the structure to do for you visually. “An outdoor structure is a place that will be seen from the house, but it’s also a place from where to see,” says Peeples. “Think about what you want to look at from the structure. You don’t want it to face a messy storage area or some other unsightly part of the yard.”
This waterside gazebo, located across a pond from the main house, was customized to provide balance with the home's conservatory. Courtesy Tanglewood Conservatories.
Custom or Not?
Backyard structures can be custom built, or they can be ordered ready to assemble. The advantage of pre-fab is the speed and ease of putting a structure in place, not to mention the lower costs. Finyl Vinyl, Vixen Hill, and Fire Stone all create ready-made products that ship toy our door. On the other end of the spectrum is custom design. For instance, conservatories at Tanglewood Conservatories take about one year to create and can run as high as $1,000 per square foot. Evans engaged a local architect to design his pool house and estimates the project took a year and a half to complete and ran 40% over budget.
Custom or not, Dayton recommends that homeowners spend plenty of time in the planning stages. “Things can be changed on paper but not after they’re built,” she notes.
Value Added
Outdoor structures boost your home’s value. “For every dollar you spend on a structure, you recoup a dollar in the appraised value,” Lyle maintains. And adding exterior living space costs a lot less than adding interior space. An indoor great room, notes Lyle, will cost at least $150 a square foot, while an outdoor room can start at $20 to $30 a square foot.
Plus an outdoor structure of any kind is apt to create a memorable impression on buyers. “Bleary-eyed buyers look at dozens of houses in a given day and your outdoor structure will give them something to remember about your home,” says Stein.
While there are financial rewards to adding outdoor structures, the very best reason is personal. “Thanks to the poolhouse,” says Evans, “our home has become our sanctuary.”
Andrea C. Poe has written for Country Living, Town & Country and The Washington Post, among hundreds of other publications. She lives in an art-filled Victorian house in Easton, Maryland.
Contacts:
Christine M. Dayton Architect, P.A.: cdaytonarchitect.com or 410-822-3130
Country Casual: countrycasual.com or 800-284-8325
Finyl Vinyl: finylvinylbp.com or 877-933-6846
Fire Stone Home Products: firestonehp.com or 866-303-4028
Hord Coplan Macht: hcm2.com or 410-837-7311
McHale Landscape Design,Inc.: mchaleandmchale.com or 301-599-8300
Summerwood Products: summerwood.com or 800-663-5042
Tanglewood Conservatories: tanglewood-conservatories.com or 410-479-4700
Vixen Hill Cedar Products: vixenhill.com or 800-423-2766
