Outer Spaces
By Stacee Sledge
Whatcom Magazine, Summer 2005
The inside scoop on
great outdoor living
Every homeowner
covets a gorgeous yard. But Whatcom County’s blissful
summers inspire folks to go further and pair beauty with
functionality. It might mean combining a seating area
with an ultra-organized gardening workspace or mixing
room for recreation with sightlines of sunny views.
From patios to
putting greens, here’s how Whatcom County homeowners are
extend their living spaces into the great outdoors.
Par for the
course
With a quick glance from the road into David and Marilew
Calapp’s back yard, nothing seems unusual in this North
Shore neighborhood of lovely landscaped lots. But take a
closer look and you’ll spot every duffer’s dream: a home
putting green.
“I took it up two
years ago,” says David Calapp. He is CEO of Aerotech
Sports, an engineering, design and manufacturing company
which creates, among other things, golf shafts. “I
figured if I’m going to catch up with all my friends
who’ve been playing golf their whole lives, I’d better
get an advantage.”
Hence a putting green in the back yard, complete with
sand trap.
The 15-foot-wide artificial turf green, constructed last
summer, rests in a lower corner of the deep back yard
overlooking Lake Whatcom. “I put a hole on either end
(of the green) so I could practice putting between the
two and chipping into either side,” says Calapp.
The couple garnered ideas from landscape architects, but
in the end, Calapp’s own design won out. While looking
for materials at a local rock supplier, he met Derek
Johnson, CEO of West Coast Landscape, and hired his team
to help with construction.
The foundation was done much like a paver patio, with
compressed levels of crushed rock and sand, which was
then graded. “You can make them challenging or you can
make them flat,” says Calapp. “I put quite a bit of
grade to these.”
“It was a really unique project,” says Johnson. “It
sounded like a lot of fun, so we said we’d do it.”
“And now a lot of people want them in their back yards
or front yards — the idea has really taken off.”
Striking
simplicity
“Not one of my clients is ordinary,” says Susan
Harrison, president and principal designer at
Bellingham’s Private Gardens Design Inc. “My goal is to
create outdoor spaces as highly individual as my
clients.”
The Asian-inspired
garden she created for David and Rena Ziegler’s property
just off Mount Baker Highway does just that.
A retired Western
Washington University professor, David dreamed of a
place to work on and display his bonsai plants. He
sought surroundings that reflected the calm, organized
nature of his longtime hobby yet also fit in with
Japanese-style architecture of the couple’s 1971 home.
Harrison, a
lifelong gardener who founded her landscape
design-and-build company in 1990, translated that vision
into a quiet, two-tiered garden. Bonsai supplies are
kept orderly and out of sight on the lower level, while
more than 200 plants are displayed a few steps higher.
Harrison and her team crafted a Zen-like retreat of
stone and wood. Detailed with a potting shed, trickling
fountain to diminish traffic noise and meticulously
built stone wall, it offers a multitude of perspectives.
“When you move two feet, something very different
appears,” says the homeowner, “which is very Japanese.”
Ziegler’s plants
are displayed in a sunny gallery of wooden benches and
shelves, which also shares views of a small pond behind
the home.
Equally as
striking as the bonsai plants, the potting shed design
functions as an intimate work space or opens to the
elements.
The shed’s design
incorporates two wide wood doors that slide apart,
streaming air and sun into the compact structure.
Shelves line the back wall, punctuated by dozens of
glazed pots. Two identical workbenches flank the doorway
and pull together to enclose the space.
Because the
workspace is next to a terrace outside David’s home
studio where Rena frequently sits, David can be near his
wife while enjoying the solitude of his work.
“My wife has a riotous Victorian garden on the other
side of the house, but this is quite spare,” says David
Ziegler. “This is my space.”
Outdoor living
rooms
After Merrilee Kullman completed her Master Gardener
requirements in April of 1993, the house hunt she and
husband Fred were on took a turn.
“Taking the Master Gardener program really changed what
I wanted in a property,” says Merrilee Kullman. “We had
wanted a wooded yard, but then I needed sunshine.”
Six months later the Kullmans, both retired, purchased
their county home with its large, private yard and
plant- and flower-friendly southern exposure.
Merrilee Kullman sought Susan Harrison’s services in
2000, and again in 2002, to create comfortable outdoor
quarters to accommodate her diverse and abundant plant
collection.
“Creating the gardens has been a continual process,”
says Merrilee Kullman. Harrison defined individual,
permanent areas in which to sit and enjoy the
ever-changing foliage.
Three distinct
outdoor spaces took form — what Harrison calls “rooms” —
that showcase Merrilee’s gorgeous greenery and also
afford a tapestry of pastoral, forest and foothill
views. Meandering rock pathways guide guests around the
house and into each space. One “room” is a patio
adjacent to a small pond on the property, where a small
sitting terrace nestles near the rock-lined,
plant-filled water.
Tandem terraces hug the house, offering views into
woodland gardens. Both patios are accessed from French
doors on each side of the home’s dining room. “These
have actually become like outdoor living rooms,” says
Merrilee Kullman. “We eat out there a lot during the
summer.”
To
make these two porticos, Harrison removed a wood deck
and its view-obstructing railing, easing maintenance and
opening up the expanse. “It created a much better
relationship between the house and the garden,” says
Merrilee.
With that kind of emphasis on spatial relationships,
Harrison fit the design to match Kullmans’
personalities. “The garden is as gregarious, ebullient
and comfortable as both its owners,” she says.
These homes give outside spaces as much thought as
indoor rooms, integrating them as habitats for hobbies,
hosting parties and hanging out. Whether simple or
spectacular, the surroundings say what’s best about
living in our sunniest season.
Stacee Sledge is a
Bellingham
freelance writer.
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