Refreshing recreation

Three years ago, Scott and Heather Smith found themselves eager for a relaxing getaway spot, but not wanting to hit the road on Friday afternoons. Their solution: a backyard oasis where family and friends can embrace the Carolina weather year-round.

“Scott designed the pool for how we’d really use it,” Heather explains. A shallow end is ideal for sunbathing and play, while a deeper corner is “just the right height for drinking a margarita without getting water in it.”

An enticing hot tub — which fits eight — flows into the swimming pool. Then, once the sun sets, a brick patio fireplace offers a cozy place to wind down the day.

Green peace

As a member of the marketing team for the Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Sharyn Turner knows beauty. She also knows she wasn’t a fan of mowing her large backyard. Hence Turner’s sweeping natural area, which is playfully dotted with patches of color as hydrangeas, purple cone flowers, and astilbe reach to the sky.

Hidden amongst the greenery is a table and chairs which Turner says is perfect for sipping a glass of lemonade. “When you work in a garden, you need to find time to sit and enjoy it,” she notes. And year after year, that she does: “Each season, when the perennials come back to say hello, it’s like having a friend come back to town for a visit.”

‘Rooms’ with a view

Will and Christy Spencer’s 1929 English medieval style home’s back brick patio serves as an outdoor living room for the couple. A fountain and fireplace complete the space that Christy describes as “an English garden with Bohemian accents that suits our lifestyle perfectly.”

Floorcloth arist Kathy Cooper uses pops of color to accent a white-walled porch in her Washington Park abode. Featured in Suze Bragg’s Historic Washington Park book, the porch is unique in that it was positioned on the side of the house, where it originally faced a large garden and featured an open view. Cooper placed one of her floorcloths on the floor, and old sap buckets from Maine and Canada on the wall. A long, chartreuse pew from a Baptist church in Stokes County serves as a seat for the table. Cooper also notes the porch’s blue ceiling, which is said in the South to ward off wasps and spirits. “I love that porch,” she adds. “It has such wide eaves that it never rains in. It’s a great place for a meal or a party!”

Sculpted serenity

When Adrienne Livengood-Baker and her husband, Tony, redesigned their outside courtyard, the couple knew they’d employ area artisans. “We are blessed to have a tremendous amount of local talent,” she says. This poolside fountain was crafted by Clayton Proctor, who also completed murals inside the home. “I wanted something with an Asian tree-of-life, cyclical feel,” Livengood-Baker says. “Clayton came up with this wonderful tree with twisted copper and an outside circle. It was perfect.” Vee Cheetwood then designed a stone pool for the patio’s focal point.

“Our Japanese water garden was a true example of making lemonade out of lemons,” Livengood-Baker says of the area, which was previously crippled with drainage issues. “Vee was thorough in his research, and made it quite authentic.” The use of Oriental details at this Williamsburg-style home is intentional. “Homes in Williamsburg traditionally had Asian influences, including Oriental rugs and shapes. Plus,” she says, “the symbols are good luck.”