Patio of the Week: Custom Details and Spectacular Views

Photos by Greg Muntz

Yard at a Glance
Who lives here: A family of 4; he is a metal fabricator, she is a photographer and they have two preteen kids
Location: Boulder, Colorado
Size: 5,000-square-foot (464.5-square-meter) landscaped area on a 19-acre property
Designer and builder: Evoke

The homeowners wanted an outdoor space that would complement the contemporary design of their home. “They want it to be very playful and fun,” Stevens says. More important, they wanted to be able to enjoy and admire their home’s picturesque setting and surrounding vistas. “Ultimately, it was about creating a secondary living space outside,” the designer says.

The team took several months to design, engineer and grade the steeply sloped property. They devised a series of outdoor rooms connected by steps and walkways, taking advantage of the spectacular views while still leaving much of the property untouched. “We kept everything really close to the house so that we could celebrate the natural surroundings,” Stevens says.

An entry walk leads from the driveway at the front of the house straight to the yard, so guests don’t have to walk through the house to reach the outdoor spaces. The walk is a series of raised concrete pavers with a sand exposed finish. “It looks more aged and refined. It reveals the aggregate in the concrete, so it’s not that bright white,” Stevens says.

Catmint (Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’) frames the left side of the path, with Russian sage (Perovskia artiplicifolia) growing on the right. An aspen tree behind the sage contributes to the low-water, regionally appropriate landscape the homeowners wanted. The design team extensively graded the land beyond the path and seeded it with native grasses to create a smooth transition out to the natural area.

A sculpture by one of the homeowners sits on a concrete landing along the path.

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The path then transitions to a series of concrete steps with integrated step lights. A steel railing fabricated by the homeowner follows the path of the stairs up to the outdoor living area. “The site was really sloped, and there was quite a bit of earth work that had to happen to make this work,” Stevens says.

The outdoor lounge is the first space you reach from the entry steps. (It also can be accessed from the living room.)

The patio is framed by a planter filled with hens-and-chicks (Sempervivum sp.), stonecrop (Sedum spurium ‘Dragon’s Blood’) and woolly thyme (Thymus pseudolanuginosus).

The lounge features an L-shaped sofa and a custom powder-coated steel fire pit. A gas line runs to the fire pit. Posts mounted in the retaining wall hold string lights. “The cafe lights make it a fun space to be at night,” Stevens says.

Concrete retaining walls frame the patio, holding back the slope behind. “We wanted the wall to be 30 inches tall so it created a back to the space. The other walls [in the project] are more or less dictated by the space,” Stevens says.

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The retaining wall projects off of the patio, subtly directing views out toward the city of Boulder. At night the homeowners can sit on the patio and see the lights of the city in the distance.

The retaining wall also directs views toward the water feature just below the patio, which also cleverly handles the patio’s drainage.

The patio slopes away from the house, toward the concrete retaining wall. “We had to put a channel drain there to funnel the water off the patio,” Stevens says. At that point they asked themselves, “We have all of this water flowing off into this channel. What if we capture it?” (In this photo you can see how water from the patio runs into the water feature.)

The water feature is a poured concrete basin. The homeowner fabricated a waterproof steel shell that sits within the concrete. Aquatic plants grow in the water feature.

Guests entering the yard from the front of the house also encounter the water feature before they reach the patio.

An outdoor kitchen just past the lounge offers room to cook, gather and eat. It features an L-shaped counter, with the cooking area on one side and a bar area on the other side. “[The homeowner] wanted it to be pretty simple — just a grill with storage underneath,” Stevens says.

The kitchen is made from poured and formed concrete walls with a half-inch-thick countertop of black-painted steel. The bar area extends out from the concrete retaining wall behind — which doubles as a backsplash. (The grill area connects to the kitchen through another door, just to the right of this view.)

Stairs from the kitchen lead to the outdoor dining area, which sits under a shade structure designed by Evoke and built by the homeowner. The structure’s corrugated metal roof means the homeowners can enjoy the space in rain or shine. The homeowners grows herbs, veggies and other plants in the raised beds and pots surrounding the dining area.

Steps from the dining area further wrap around the house and lead to another outdoor terrace. Here, a partially submerged hot tub overlooks the surrounding forests, with a second shade structure built by the homeowner.

While most of the outdoor paving is concrete, this level (and an 8-foot-wide band seen in the previous photo) is composite decking by Fiberon. “Introducing the decking really broke up all the concrete. It’s a really pretty gray to complement the house, Stevens says. “It’s also totally maintenance-free.”

From this view, you can see how the outdoor rooms flow together and wrap around the house. You can also see how significant the site’s slope is.