Backyard getaways Families are turning outdoor spaces into vacation spots
Savannah Shyne has big plans for the summer, and none of them involve leaving her backyard in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.
On her quarter-acre lot, she has managed to squeeze in a 15-foot-wide inflatable pool, a 10-footwide trampoline, a vegetable patch, a climbing dome and a butterfly garden, all while leaving enough space for the new family puppy to run around.
“We’re not sending the kids to camp. We’re not doing the pool. This is a whole different lifestyle,” said Shyne, 43, who, in a typical summer, would have sent her 8-year-old twins to day camp in the mornings and then spent the afternoons at the village pool with them. “Everybody is freaking out. What are we going to do?”
Shyne and her husband, Sam Effron, 46, a lawyer, have surrendered to the very real possibility that the summer of 2020 will be a dud. Facing the prospect of prolonged social distancing orders and business closures, they have turned their backyard into a substitute for the places the family might have gone had life not ground to a halt because of the coronavirus pandemic. Even as some venues and activities open, Shyne doubts the family would venture out since she is immunocompromised. And so the yard that was once a neglected afterthought where the children rarely bothered to play is now the main attraction.
As millions of Americans prepare for a summer spent largely at home, despite the loosening of some stay-athome orders, many are taking a fresh look at their outdoor spaces and finding ways to make them more inviting. They are adding play sets, bounce houses, fire pits and basketball hoops — anything to keep themselves and their children busy during the long, hot months ahead. Bigticket projects that may have been shelved for years — like outdoor kitchens, in-ground pools, hot tubs or cabanas — are suddenly top priorities, with homeowners calling contractors to see if such projects can be completed during a shutdown.
On Wayfair, demand was up in April 2020 from the same time a year ago for trampolines, swing sets, bounce houses, seesaws and hammocks, according to the company. Web traffic and inquiries to Yardzen, an online design service, spiked by 300% after shelter-in-place orders were enacted, according to the company. And at Solo Stove, which sells low-smoke fire pits, the spring buying season kicked into gear in
April, a month earlier than normal.
The quarantine “got people preparing for summer early,” said John Merris, the chief executive of Solo Stove, a Southlake, Texas-based company. “You can only watch Netflix for so long.”
Homeowners just now starting to shop are discovering that some outdoor items are almost as difficult to come by as toilet paper, with stocks low and shipments delayed.
Shyne started to get anxious that she was late to the game when she spoke with a friend in Los Angeles, where temperatures were already summerlike in the beginning of May. Her friend advised her to stock up fast. “She’s like, ‘You have to get on this. Everyone is buying them. You’re not even going to be able to get anything!’ ” Shyne said.
Shyne eventually located a $1,000 Spark trampoline on Flybar, a website that sells pogo sticks, and a $180 4-foot-deep, free-standing inflatable pool, large enough for an adult to use, from Splash Super Center. She had adopted the puppy and built the 10-by-20-foot fence for the vegetable garden earlier in the year. Now that the items have arrived, she’s stunned by the transformation of her yard.
“I just never would think I would look in my backyard and see all this gear,” she said. “But on the other hand, these are unprecedented times.”
While hunting down small-ticket items may take some internet sleuthing, the fate of a large construction project like an inground pool hinges on state and local stay-at-home orders. Some states, like New York, have tight restrictions in place, preventing nonessential construction projects from going forward in large parts of the state. But even in states with more lenient rules, a local municipality may not be issuing permits, or contractors may not have work crews available.
Christopher Argenziano, the chief executive of the Pool Boss, a pool installer in Wayne, New Jersey, says business has been steady, and clients this year are more motivated to start work than in typical years. But even if the client is ready to go, state and local guidelines are confusing, inconsistent and shifting. “It’s day by day. It’s so unclear,” he said.
But for homeowners fortunate enough to live in areas where outdoor construction is possible, a new pool could happen. Mike Hooyman decided just a few weeks ago to install one at his 9,000-square-foot house on 1.3 acres in Florham Park, New Jersey. He and his wife, Jamie Bossert, 36, had canceled their summer beach house rental reservation on Long Beach Island on the Jersey Shore, and the couple’s three children — ages 2, 4 and 6 — were “busting at the seams,” Hooyman said.
“The summer rental thing freaked us out. Who’s going to be renting before us? Do we want to be on the beach?” said Hooyman, 42, who owns a retail display company that, during the pandemic, has been manufacturing and distributing personal protective equipment for hospitals.
So Hooyman called an architect who had recently sketched plans for them for an in-ground pool and cabana and told him to move ahead with the job. The $250,000 project will include a 20-by-40-foot pool. The cabana will have a bathroom, an outdoor kitchen with a pizza oven, and an outdoor living room with an 82-inch television and a fireplace.
Hooyman expects the work to be complete by Aug. 1, the time his family would have left for the shore — a timeline his architect, Dan D’Agostino, the owner of Plan Architecture, describes as “ambitious but doable.”
Hooyman sees the investment as one that will give his children ample space to play and his extended family a safe area to gather. “This will allow the grandparents to come and sit at the poolside,” he said. “They’ll be safe.”
He sees his retreat from the beach as a long-term shift for his family and doesn’t anticipate renting a summer house again. “I’d rather have the sanctuary of my home versus the unknown,” he said. “I think fear is going to be there next year.”