Once upon a time, the suburban yard was just grass, trees, and a patio or deck with a picnic table. Not anymore. Today, yards boast swimming pools designed to look like ponds, outdoor living rooms with stone fireplaces and upholstered love seats, man-made streams complete with waterfalls, and lighting that rivals a Broadway theater. Wilton’s pastoral landscape, replete with flowering trees and shrubs, woods, ponds, streams, and rolling hills, offers the perfect backdrop for these sophisticated outdoor amenities.

Lighting design and installation by Lucci Electric, Inc. Photo by Jeff Pemberton

The current trends in residential building have given rise to a whole new way of thinking about the land surrounding the home. Motivated by higher fuel prices and the desire to enjoy their new, enlarged state-of-the-art homes, many homeowners are now spending more time in, and more money on, their yards. Their patches of green have become extensions of their indoor living spaces. By integrating inside rooms with what they now consider outdoor rooms, not just patios, decks, pool areas, or porches, they’re able to enjoy the out-of-doors any time of day, and often year round. Today, Wiltonians are decorating the outside of their homes just as they have their interior rooms. Exterior design has become hot, but sorting through the wide array of products available to achieve the desired result can be overwhelming. Fortunately, there are many experts to call upon for help.

Photo courtesy Cugno Architecture

“We’ve seen a huge interest in addressing the outdoors over the past few years. People who completed major renovations several years ago are now spending money on their yards. Amenities like patios, decks, outdoor fireplaces, pools and pool houses, screen porches, landscaping, and lighting are now included in the initial scope of the work for a renovation or addition, not treated as an afterthought. Today, many of the plans we do for a new or renovated family room, kitchen, or other rooms where people entertain, include designs for corresponding outdoor spaces,” explains Joe Cugno, a local Wilton architect. Screen porches have become popular as secondary eating areas because people want to dine outside during warmer months without being bothered by bugs. Cugno says he’s doing more porches with bluestone floors, fancier ceilings like bead board planking and ceiling fans, and columns instead of traditional posts in the corner.

Because there are so many options for amenities, designing an outdoor plan can be complicated. Homeowners need to consider how they want to use their outdoor space, how many people it needs to accommodate, their lifestyle, and their tastes. In addition to balancing functionality with aesthetics, they also need to set budget parameters and priorities because exterior decorating doesn’t come cheap.

Hire an Architect
A great place to start is with an architect or landscape architect. He or she will evaluate the property, talk to homeowners about what they want, and develop a comprehensive plan that fits with the style of their house, their lifestyle, and budget. As Brian Cossari, a landscape architect with Hoffman Landscapes Inc., explains, “People want to create outdoor living rooms and enjoy their yards. Planning outdoor spaces has become as important as planning interior spaces. We work with clients from the design phase through execution and we can even develop a plan for maintenance of the end results. We’re getting a lot of requests for patios and decks with brick or stone fireplaces and chimneys or fire pits. These enable people to use their outdoor space virtually year round. People are also requesting multi-functional fireplaces. They want to be able to cook with charcoal in the firebox and then swing the grate out and make a wood fire to enjoy after the meal.” For one homeowner, he recently designed an outdoor living space defined by a wisteria-covered pergola made from rustic hand-hewn chestnut barn beams supported by stone pillars. He installed a bluestone floor and a Rumford-style fieldstone fireplace with a very wide, tall but shallow opening to radiate maximum heat. The space, furnished like a living room with upholstered sofas, love seats, coffee and end tables, and lamps, is wired with an Ethernet connection, cable, and an integrated sound system. The speakers are hidden in the stone work and the volume controls are conveniently, but unobtrusively, located in the stone pillars.

Photo courtesy Patio.com

With outdoor spaces functioning like interior rooms, traditional interior design elements—layout, color, scale, and texture—become important considerations. Outdoor furnishings and accessories have changed dramatically from the humble cedar picnic table and chairs. “We’re seeing a lot more interest in big stone tabletops, ceramic tabletops, natural wood, teak, and mixed materials like aluminum and teak in seating, and sofas, club chairs, and loveseats. Two-person or double chaise lounges have become very popular. People are looking for, and manufacturers are offering, a much wider range of fabric styles, colors, and patterns. Brighter colors are very hot right now. The preferred outdoor fabric is still solution-dyed acrylic. The higher quality acrylics feel like cotton, but are much more durable,” says David Ross of Patio.com. More people are choosing upholstered furnishings for their patios or decks because they want the furniture to be comfortable. They’re literally taking their living rooms outside. While oversized furniture is the trend, if a client likes to entertain outdoors often and doesn’t have a large patio, Brian Cossari of Hoffman Landscapes will design sitting walls so the space isn’t crowded with too many chairs and tables.

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