Patio of the Week: San Francisco Yard Plays With Light and Shadow

“After” photos by Caitlin Atkinson

Backyard at a Glance
Who lives here: Interior stylist Erin Hiemstra of Apartment 34; her husband, Christopher Wick; their preschooler, Carter; and their French bulldog
Location: San Francisco
Size: Backyard: 3,000 square feet (279 square meters); lot: one-tenth of an acre
Designer and project manager: Beth Mullins, principal of Growsgreen Landscape Design
Contractor: John Rigney of SEED Landscaping

Hiemstra and Wick had clear ideas about how they wanted to use their backyard, and they knew they would need a professional to get there. “I’d made a point to create a traditional and modern mix in our home’s interior, and I wanted someone who could help me achieve the same effect for the exterior,” Hiemstra says. She adds that she “regularly turns to Houzz as a visual resource” and found the platform helpful in gathering ideas for their new backyard.

The couple hired landscape designer Beth Mullins of Growsgreen Landscape Design to help bring their vision for the backyard to life. “It was a gratifying collaboration,” Mullins says, citing a shared appreciation of a clean, modern aesthetic mixed with traditional principles of design. “We were aligned on the overall vision and feel for the space,” she says.

Find a landscape designer on Houzz

Before: The original backyard felt like an obstacle course. Small brick patios filled in the multilevel yard between crumbling retaining walls, planting beds and unmortared stacks of bricks. “It was a hodgepodge,” Hiemstra says. The yard was “neither optimized for use nor friendly for a small child who wants to run and play.” Trees had been planted too close to the home’s foundation, and rainwater drained from the patios straight into the home’s crawl space, causing flooding.

Before: One aspect of the original backyard that Hiemstra liked was the way light came through the corrugated fence they shared with their neighbors. But the fence needed replacing. She asked Mullins to come up with a reinterpretation of the fence using a more contemporary material.

After: Mullins replaced the old fence with one made out of translucent polycarbonate greenhouse panels in a design loosely inspired by Japanese shoji screens. (These are traditionally made of sheets of paper stretched on wood frames and are used as interior room dividers in Japan.) “I had seen [the greenhouse panels] in commercial applications abroad and was excited about any shadow effect we might get,” the designer says. Now, light and shadows from the neighbor’s tree form an ever-changing backdrop to the new garden.

Also worth noting here: Mullins had the new Alaskan yellow cedar deck boards set on two diagonals — one for the outdoor dining area and one for the kitchen and living area. This design move subtly defines the two areas and prevents the deck from looking extra long.

Outdoor Dining Area

Mullins approached the design of the garden similarly to how an interior designer might tackle indoor living spaces — designating specific “rooms” for different uses, such as dining, cooking and relaxing. But, she says, “in a garden there aren’t as many clues as to what goes where.” By carefully considering factors such as sun and shade patterns and access to the home, Mullins developed a layout of three distinct outdoor rooms for the backyard.

Moving from right to left (or east to west) through the garden, you first encounter the outdoor dining room. It occupies a semisheltered place in the side yard. The dining area is positioned just outside the back door of the home’s kitchen for easy indoor-outdoor flow. Hedges of ‘Silver Sheen’ kōhūhū (Pittosporum tenuifolium ‘Silver Sheen’) run along the fence side of the space. They add lushness without blocking light, thanks to their airy branch structure. Chamaedorea palms (Chamaedorea plumosa) will eventually grow to form a medium-height leafy canopy.

Outdoor Kitchen and Living Area

The second outdoor room, an outdoor entertaining area for cooking and hanging out, occupies the largest portion of the backyard. A built-in grill anchors one side of the outdoor room with a seating area around a fire pit set across from it.

The concrete retaining wall that the grill is built into flows from a 36-inch counter height to an 18-inch seat height. It can be used both as a place to rest dishes and a spot to sit (if the planters are moved).

One of the biggest challenges of the backyard design was dealing with various grade changes. The side yard was significantly lower than the right side of the backyard, while the left side of the backyard sloped downward. Moving between spaces — up a few stairs, then down a few stairs — felt choppy and awkward. Adding a deck to span the side yard and backyard made it possible to make the outdoor kitchen, lounge and dining spaces all one grade, with the complicated level changes underneath the boards.

“The deck is larger than most would expect,” the designer says, but she describes the size as being a critical solution to maximize usability and create cohesion. The Alaskan yellow cedar wood will fade to an ash gray over time.

Soaking Tub Deck

The third outdoor room, located a few steps down from the main deck, is slightly more private, featuring a Japanese soaking tub, an outdoor shower and an adjacent home office. An arid Mediterranean-inspired planting palette of dwarf olive trees (Olea europaea ‘Skylark Dwarf’), autumn moor grass (Sesleria autumnalis) and ‘Huntington Carpet’ rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis ‘Huntington Carpet’) will grow to fill in the built-in planting beds with foliage ranging from deep green to silver.

In addition to the perimeter landscape plantings, potted accents positioned around the deck add interest and lushness. All the plants throughout the garden were chosen to be climate-appropriate, low-water and low-maintenance. They’re on moderate irrigation now as the roots get established, but will be reduced to low irrigation once the plants settle in.

Home Office

A 10-by-10-foot home office, designed by Eric Enns of Modern Spaces, anchors the left side of the backyard. The space was designed to be Hiemstra’s office, from which she could run her design company, but she and Wick have been taking turns using it while they shelter in place. “It’s been crucial,” she says.

The office looks out onto the calming scene of the lower deck and garden. On warm days, the homeowners prop the door open to let in fresh air. On chilly ones, they make use of the office’s heated flooring.

In this photo you can see how the position of the outdoor shower makes it entirely private, as it is bordered by fencing, the side of the home office and a wood screen.