This artistic and quirky backyard serves many practical purposes
stories by Judy Ross
photography by Derek Trask
This country garden, nestled among apple orchards and soft rolling hills, is so full of personality it gives new meaning to the idea of ‘having fun with your outdoor space.’ But it wasn’t always this way. “When we first saw the property there was nothing there,” says Rob Vogel, of Vogel Landscape Group, the landscape architects on the project. “The old barn building (now the pool house) was there and the house itself, but in between was just overgrown grass.”
At the time, Colin Grant of Porter Skelton was working with the owners on the home’s interior, so he became involved with the garden renovation, lending it the same quirky sense of design. “Colin knows that I like things a little off-kilter,” laughs the owner, “so I didn’t want a manicured, orderly outdoor space. I wanted it to seem like part of this beautiful natural setting. And because I don’t have the greenest of thumbs, it had to be low maintenance.”
The defining feature is the large (25- by 50-foot) swimming pool. The owners wanted a natural looking concrete pool, but the cost exceeded the budget. So Vogel and his team came up with an upgraded vinyl pool that looks like concrete at half the price. The dark blue liner and stone edging give it a pond-like appearance and, rather than a diving board, a couple of stacked boulders (found in the adjacent forest) serve as a jumping-off point.
At the heart of the garden is a sunken sitting area bordered by rustic stone walls and an immense outdoor Rumford fireplace. A wood-burning pizza oven is tucked into a niche of the stone wall. “We collected the stones to build this outdoor living room from the ruins of an old barn,” says the owner, who loves to work with salvaged materials. “That’s why it looks as if it’s always been here.”
With such an intriguing backdrop, Cathy Lane of Panache Design Works was the perfect person to do the outdoor styling for this garden as part of last summer’s Backyard Glam Tour, sponsored by On The Bay Magazine. “You have to be sympathetic to the already existing bones of the garden,” explains Lane. “In this case, the owners and Rob Vogel had done the groundwork and created a very fanciful setting. I just had to enhance it.”
Unlike interior spaces where rooms can be shut off from one another, backyards are more open, so you need to find ways to draw your eye from one space to another. One way is to use colour keys – features in similar colours that lead you through the space. Another design trick is to “cosy up the outdoor spaces.” This makes the place looked lived in and accessible. “When there’s a pool, I like to add baskets of rolled-up towels,” says Lane, “or put colourful straw bags around. Otherwise a backyard can look empty and not very user friendly.”
Hanging art outdoors not only adds colour, but is also a playful alternative to putting in more plant materials. Lane mounted large oils of farm animals by Clarksburg artist Sue Tupy on the walls of both the house and the pool house. Because the garden was styled as part of the Backyard Glam Tour, the art was temporary, and taken inside in case of rain. “I normally wouldn’t put expensive art like this outdoors,” admits Lane, “but you could get the same effect by hanging glass-free reproductions on canvas.”
Sculpture in the garden also lends an unexpected element, and many artists are creating works specifically for private backyards. To complement this natural outdoor space, a large rusty metal pinecone by sculptor Floyd Elzinga lies on the ground, offering the perfect scale and an added note of whimsy. Continuing the ‘salvaged’ theme are the old barn door on the pool house and the cedar rail ties mounted vertically (these are intended to look like an old-fashioned rain barrel, serving practical use as a privacy screen for the outdoor shower.
In the end the true test of a backyard is not so much how it looks, but how it’s used and whether it’s enjoyed. For the owner of this joy-filled garden it turned out to be just what she had hoped. “Last summer we had about 30 guests for a weekend reunion,” she recalls, “and we spent all our time outside. We had hot tubs, swam in the pool, dined outside and then, after a full day of activities, we gathered around a roaring fire in the fireplace for a late night drink. It was magical.” ❧
