Front-yard patios spark summer socializing
Location allows for easy mingling with neighbors and friends.
A nostalgia for old-fashioned neighborliness has fueled the revival of the front porch in recent years.
Want to ST. LOUIS PARK, MINN. — make your neighborhood friendlier? Consider adding a frontyard patio … some pavers, a few plants, a couple of comfy chairs
and, voila! instant summer — — socializing.
That’s the way it seems to be working in one St. Louis Park, Minn., where front-yard patios have become contagious in recent years.
Beth and Gerry Gunderson added one in 2015, inspired by a neighbor’s new patio a block away. “We just loved it!” recalled Beth, whose enthusiasm for entertaining has earned the couple a nickname: the Fundersons. “I walked home and said, ‘Let’s do it here.’ “
Last year, the Gundersons’ next-door neighbors, Bobbi and Mike Deeney, also added a front patio. “We used to have chairs on the grass,” said Bobbi, an avid gardener. “But it was hard to move them to mow. Now there’s less to mow — and more for me to plant.”
Just a few months later, Mary and Trent Steffy added their own front patio, inspired by the two across the street. “We needed to redo our front landscape anyway — it was overgrown,” said Mary. And as a teacher who relishes her summers off, she was eager to create another outdoor space to enjoy. “I try to spend as much time outside as possible — I literally bring my laundry out and fold it!”
Backyard patios — secluded and private — have long been the norm, but upfront patios are currently trending, according to Diana Grundeen, owner of Trio Landscaping, the Minneapolis firm that designed and installed both the Gundersons’ and Deeneys’ patios.
“We have been doing more front-yard projects. They’re more social,” she said.
That nostalgia for old-fashioned neighborliness also has fueled the revival of the front porch in recent years. “But not everybody’s architecture lends itself to a front porch,” Grundeen noted. (The Gundersons had talked about adding a front porch, Beth said, but were concerned it would make their living room too dark.)
The Deeneys, Gundersons and Steffys all had big backyard patios already. Their front-yard patios serve a different role. “It gives you options,” said Trent. The Steffys still grill in back, and hang out there when they’re in the mood for quiet relaxation. The front “is when we’re feeling more social.”
A front-yard patio creates an easy, natural way to mingle with neighbors, said Bobbi, who likes to spend time on hers at the end of the workday when people are coming home. “They walk down the street, sit on the wall, and we’ll chitchat.”
Some gatherings even migrate from one patio to another, picking up neighbors as the evening progresses. “My husband likes to start in front,” said Bobbi. “Depending how many people we accumulate, we’ll move to the back.”
This friendly block, lined with trees and sidewalks, has long been an unusually sociable one. In the mid-’80s, someone started a popular and enduring “flamingo night” tradition — posting a lawn ornament as an impromptu invitation to neighbors to pour a drink, grab a snack and wander over for a casual gathering. Flamingo nights still take place several times each summer. But the new front-yard patios have inspired more frequent, spontaneous get-togethers.
“We’ve always been social, but it transformed how we’re social,” said Beth Gunderson. “Out here, it’s much more inviting and easy for new neighbors. We wouldn’t see these people if we were in back.”
The Steffys’ “happy hour patio,” which catches the lateafternoon sun, unlike their backyard patio, is living up to its nickname. “People come out at happy hour,” Mary said. “My neighbors come over. Suddenly, it’s 10 or 11 at night.”