outdoor spaces
Architect David Scott Parker designed the pool pavilion to act as a proscenium for the view of Long Island Sound. As a symbolic tribute to painter John Frederick Kensett, who once lived on the site and whose circa 1872 painting, The Old Pine, Darien, Connecticut, is part of The Met’s permanent collection, the team went to great lengths to preserve the pine tree (not the same one that’s in the painting) that sprouts from the granite ledge on the left.
The roof-deck’s original pavers got so hot during the summer that the space was difficult to use, especially for the kids. Bourque replaced the pavers and worked closely with Tuuci to install the exterior umbrellas via crane; everything, including the toss pillows, is weighted so it stays put for safety during life’s inevitable squalls.
With its retractable screens, the elegant porch of this New Hampshire vacation home can be converted into an open-air, three-season outdoor room with the push of a button. The homeowners and their guests relax on hearty resin-wicker outdoor furniture while enjoying the home’s views of Lake Winnipesaukee.
Architect Tom Catalano was tasked with designing a summer residence (left) for two sisters on a waterfront property located next door to their parents’ house, which Catalano conceived fifteen years ago. The existing pool and pool house (right) now serve both properties and act as a central entertaining space and social hub.
“It’s a bird-watcher’s paradise,” the wife says of the estuary out back, where seals sometimes frolic between the mounds of marsh grass. The eighty-six-acre property is also home to chickens and goats, as well as an apple orchard and crops, which the children help tend as a kind of outdoor environmental classroom.
In addition to the renovation of the main house, the project also included building a pool, a cabana, and a carriage house. The latter, which functions as a garage, a guesthouse, and a game room, features a bar area that can be enjoyed indoors or outdoors thanks to a handy folding window; the barstools are from Palecek.
On the terrace, furniture can easily be reconfigured for entertaining. To keep guests safe without detracting from the view, a very fine (“like netting,” says landscape architect Michael Lindquist) mesh fencing with an almost transparent top rail perches on the seawall.
A brise soleil breaks up sunlight over a seating area with ikat cushions in the wife’s favorite color combination: orange and green. Custom Quality Pools built the pool, which replaced a smaller one. The pool house is also new. This space helped unite the two properties and operates as a transition from the main house to the guesthouse.
An existing tiki bar on the property was too far gone to salvage, so KVC Builders constructed a new cedar structure on the original footprint.
A screened porch located off the pub can be closed off with folding glass doors. In the clients’ former house, the main living areas were on the upper level with little connection to the outdoors, so the goal for this project was to unite the living spaces with nature as much as possible and allow the lake to take center stage. “We wanted to create the feeling of these big public spaces stretching over the water,” notes Knerr.
For a nineteen-acre property on Cape Cod, Shope Reno Wharton architects designed a pool and recreation area that functions as a central meeting hub for the homeowners’ family and their frequent guests. The 4,600-square-foot pool house, one of many outbuildings on the grounds, was situated to align views with a salt marsh and the ocean beyond.
A pool pavilion designed by architect Kevin ten Brinke is the focal point of this new backyard entertaining area in Weston, Massachusetts. Interior designer Rachel Reider furnished the space with a sofa and coffee table from Sutherland, pillows upholstered in a Perennials fabric, and a rug from Landry & Arcari Rugs and Carpeting.
A pool pavilion designed by architect Kevin ten Brinke is the focal point of this new backyard entertaining area in Weston, Massachusetts. Interior designer Rachel Reider furnished the space with a sofa and coffee table from Sutherland, pillows upholstered in a Perennials fabric, and a rug from Landry & Arcari Rugs and Carpeting.
The pool and spa area features a mix of granite, bluestone, and ipe decking. In addition to chaise longues sitting in the pool itself, RH chaise longues line the far end of the pool terrace; the umbrellas are from Tuuci. BELOW: The pavilion can even be enjoyed in cooler weather, thanks to the granite fireplace and the infrared heating that’s embedded in the ceiling beams.
Delightful views from the back terrace include a square sculpture garden that was cleverly installed just off the Shingle-style house designed by Shope Reno Wharton. Planted with purple hardy geraniums and Japanese Stewartia trees that bloom all summer long, it features a playful royal-blue-glazed ceramic apple sculpture by Lisa Pappon.
The in-demand vegetable garden yields a bounty of produce for the family, from spring lettuces to autumn squashes.
Architect Zac Culbreth says the work of Japanese architect Kengo Kuma inspired his design of the pergola. The design team called it “cedarhenge” because of the weighty twelve-inch-square cedar posts that hold up the lattice roof. A shallow swim-in area helps create the sense that the pergola is floating on the water.
The swimming pool feels like a paradise, surrounded as it is by a riot of colorful and often fragrant perennials that drape, climb, and flow among the split-rail fencing and stone walls that border the area. Mature trees brought to the once-bare property offer shade, while at the pool’s far end, native grasses wave in the breeze and offer textural interest in every season.
Architect Brad Walker’s contemporary addition ushers the classic midcentury ranch house into the twenty-first century. The landscape plan by Matthew Cunningham and Jen Stephens creates a similar bridge between eras by combining clean, linear stone elements with lushly textured masses of native shrubs, groundcovers, and perennials
Since this newly built 5,000-square-foot shingled home sits on the foundation of the previous house, Haynes inherited the existing half-step strategy. “The goal was to reference the traditional Vermont vernacular while integrating more contemporary details, such as steel windows,” notes the architect.
The home boasts two grilling areas, one on the patio and a second at the pool house, where a New England Fieldstone fireplace provides warmth after the sun sets.
In the living room, a daybed beckons would-be nappers to take in ocean air thanks to gigantic barn doors that required extra structural supports. “There are portals to the outdoors everywhere, making it easy to commune with nature,” designer Courtney Taylor says. The house and patio overlook the red-roofed, 1930s-era Coast Guard Station.
The structures and plantings in this Westport landscape mimic the flow of the tidal creek it borders while protecting the lawn from erosion and the creek from runoff. The design, by Sandy Hook landscape architect Tara Vincenta, won a 2020 honor award from the Connecticut Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects.
Working with existing changes in grade, the pool sits higher than the landscape beyond, providing an elevated view of the harbor; local granite coping and ipe decking create the pool’s quiet palette, which is offset by the property’s most colorful gardens, filled with catmint, ferns, viburnum, and lowbush blueberry.