This interest in creating rooms outdoors, however, comes at the same time that single-family lots are shrinking rather than growing. And it's not as if the great outdoors is a new invention, either. So what's fueling this fascination now?
Outdoor spending is part of the overall boom in home remodeling spending, which has been fed by low interest rates and the steep run-up in real estate values. Americans have tapped the ever-increasing equity in their homes to upgrade their properties, both inside and out.
Linda Mclean has created an entire living area outside her Brookeville home that includes not only a pool, patio and eating area, but also a Gazebo enclosed spa with builtin television and dvd system.
(Michael Lutzky - The Washington Post)
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Manufacturers and retailers say the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks also boosted sales of outdoor home products such as hot tubs and gazebos. "It has a lot to do with 9/11," Cal Spas' Loyd said. "People were terrified to travel and not that comfortable overseas. So instead of spending money on lavish vacations, they started spending it on their homes."
American homeowners may also be striving to duplicate some of the lush outside spaces they have encountered at hotels, resorts or elsewhere in their travels.
"We're creating our own lives inspired by images from films and visits to places like Napa Valley, Tuscany and Provence," said Elvin McDonald, deputy editor for garden and outdoor living at Better Homes and Gardens magazine. "The image of a big dining table outdoors under linden trees looking out over vineyards is irresistible. Everyone wants that kind of experience."
Landscape architect Clinton said that the desire to create a pleasing outside space has become "totally mainstream." She admits, however, that outside projects can easily run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Her own firm, for example, doesn't take any project for less than $100,000; the most expensive landscaping project she's done in the area was a $4.5 million revamping of a 20-acre horse farm, which included a new swimming pool, spa, pool house, tennis court and pond.
In resale terms, is it worth it to spend all that money on the exterior of the house? For Seth Perretta and David Leary, that was an important factor when they recently re-vamped their yard in the Tenleytown neighborhood of the District.
Out of one 160-yard-long lawn, Perretta and Leary created a "three-room design." The first "room" includes a slate terrace bordered by plants; it acts as an outdoor dining room. The second "room" is a lawn area surrounded by beds of perennials; it's for kicking a ball around with their 3-year-old. The third "room" is the pool room, where they built a rectangular dark-bottom pool surrounded by a stone wall that follows the outline of the pool.
"We were absolutely thinking about resale," Perretta said. "Our thoughts were that the yard in its current state wasn't good for resale, that as a big swath of green grass, it was just an untapped asset."
Just one year after they finished their extensive -- and expensive -- landscaping project, they sold their house.
"Did we get every dollar back that we spent on our yard?" Perretta said. "It's hard to say. It certainly maximized what we got, because we got an obscene amount of money for our house."
But not everyone seems to care all that much. "Getting the money back at resale is not the first question out of people's mouths when they do these projects," said Richard Arentz of Arentz Landscape Architects LLC in the District. "It's much more about the quality of their lives now."
He said homeowners are spending more and more time in their outdoor environments and more and more money creating them. "I've seen people spend $60,000 for one tree," he said.
