Yard of the Week: Sloped Lot Becomes an Outdoor Family Oasis

Photos by Brandon Hill Photography

Landscape at a Glance
Who lives here: A couple and their young daughters
Location: Austin, Texas
Size: About one-half acre (about one-fifth hectare)
Designer: José Roberto Corea of Austin Outdoor Design

Here’s a view that shows how all the areas of the backyard fit together. Corea created a series of terraces to make the steeply sloped yard usable.

A two-story porch sits next to the new pool. Off the porch, a pergola extends over a dining area and an outdoor grilling station. The terrace near the dining area is an outdoor lounge with a fire pit. A spa located off the upper terrace has a spillway that allows water to splash down to the pool level. Over on the left in this photo is a play area under existing live oak trees.

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Before: “Our clients wanted to make better use of the backyard, which was quite useless,” Corea says. “They have daughters in elementary school and middle school, and they wanted them to spend more time playing outside. They also wanted to set the yard up for entertaining and gathering. They gave us a lot of freedom and trusted us.”

Seen here, a steep slope and crumbling retaining wall were not attractive or conducive to outdoor play. Plantings were overgrown and unattractive. The sculptural forms and shade provided by the existing live oaks (Quercus virginiana, USDA zones 8 to 10; find your zone) were big assets, so preserving and protecting the trees during construction were priorities. While Austin has strict requirements for protecting critical root zones of mature trees, these oaks did not fall under the regulations. “I follow the requirements for protecting the trees whether it’s required under the rules or not,” Corea says.

After: “Our clients already know if they hire us that they are going to get something that leans modern. However, we always pick up on the architecture of the house, and our design will complement it in some way,” Corea says. In this case, the back facade of the home did not have a particular style, so giving the porch a clean-lined modern look worked well.

One important way Corea connected the outdoor design to the interior was through the views out to the yard. He centered the elegant spa spillway off the breakfast area’s windows, creating a lovely view from an important spot inside the house. He also worked with the existing second-story porch.

“This existing porch was very functional, and it was tied into the roof. The question was how to integrate it into the design,” he says. Replacing the vertical wood railings with horizontal steel cable rails lent the space a streamlined, modern look.

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Before: Corea kept the upper porch’s decking in place and was able to use most of the existing porch structure. The surface of the patio beneath it was tired and lackluster. Another issue was the post seen here behind the green ceramic grill. It would have blocked the new spillway view from the breakfast nook.

After: Corea removed that post, making up for the structural support with a new steel beam that is covered in wood. The wider opening between posts is more modern and visually pleasing.

Another major change to the lower porch was bringing in new decking. This is a composite product that looks like wood. Overhead, Corea installed LED lights in staggered strips. The LEDs have diffusers and are channeled and tucked in between the boards. They give off a warm white light.

This photo also shows a new structure, the pergola over the dining and grilling area. The boards that make up the pergola look as though they have been pulled out and extended from the second-story deck’s joists. This cohesive transition makes the pergola feel like a natural extension of the porch. Corea doubled up the pergola’s Douglas fir boards. The recesses and shadows between each pair of boards create striking lines within the structure. Doubling up the boards also suited the extra-long scale of these connected outdoor rooms that run alongside the house.

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Corea and the homeowners wanted to incorporate structural support for the pergola into its design while minimizing the impact support columns would have on the views. Rather than covering a steel support column with wood, the designer went for contrast, choosing three elegant black steel supports.

“We only needed a single beam to support the pergola. However, we wanted to pick up on the concept of a structure composed of repetitious elements,” Corea says. Tripled-up black steel support beams play off the doubled-up Douglas fir boards. Also, the black steel picks up on the dark shadow lines between the fir boards.

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Here’s a look at the intersection of the steel and wood in the pergola design from a different angle.

Another element that needed to work with the scale of the pergola-covered deck was the grilling station. This was a moment for floating, contrast and heft. The hefty horizontal line of the countertop draws the eye from clear across the other side of the porch, underlining the fact that this is where the outdoor rooms terminate. Corea tucked tiny puck lights into the pergola above the countertop.

Before: With such a dramatic change in grade, the area between the hammock and the covered dining area seen here was not usable.

After: Corea carved out a swanky lounge terrace near the outdoor dining area, centering it around a gas fire table. The wall at the end serves two purposes. Aesthetically, it defines the lounge area. Functionally, it hides the pool equipment, which is tucked behind it.

The wall is composed of textured concrete blocks that have a limestone look. “We thought about putting a neon sign on the wall, but in the end that was too funky for them,” Corea says. Instead, the designer went for a long linear light fixture. The gas fire table is concrete.

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The patios and stairs around the pool and spa are covered in large-format, outdoor-rated porcelain tiles. They lend an organic modern look to the yard. “The spillway tiles are glass tiles, and the color is spectacular,” Corea says. “We try to be unique with our pool tiles, whether through size, scale or color.”

See 3 Sloped Lots Transformed Into Beautiful, Usable Landscapes