These Philly-area homes embrace the great outdoors

Ready for a vacation?

Instead of booking a far-flung trip, consider looking closer to home — much closer.

Take a peek into three very different outdoor spaces that each have been transformed into beautiful retreats: places designed to let the homeowners relax, recharge, and have some serious fun — no plane ticket required.

City dwellers might take inspiration from a chic rooftop renovation in Northern Liberties; Anglophiles can look to a sweeping English garden and resort-like pool in Moorestown; and porch-lovers can take a cue from the refined stone patio of a historic Wayne property.

Whatever you’re looking for, these projects pack plenty of inspiration for enjoying the spaces that are just outside your door. And what could be better than that?

A pool, multiple patios and gardens, and, yes, a professionally designed Wiffle ball field make for a yard that’s always in use.

When it came time to think about renovating their Moorestown home, Ali and John Jennings were focused on the interior. While their cottage-style house, set on a sprawling acre and a half, was charming, it needed some updates.

“We were ready to gut our kitchen,” Ali Jennings said.

They’d planned on doing the backyard too — a simple makeover to open up the yard, which had been awkwardly divided into thirds, to elevate their landscaping, and maybe to install a fire pit. But then they met with Beechwood, a landscape architecture and construction firm based in Southampton, N.J., and plans quickly changed.

“We spend all of our time together at home on nights and weekends,” Jennings said. “So when we first sat down with Beechwood, they showed us the rendering they’d created based off what they felt was best for our family. And there was a pool.”

It made sense — the Jenningses have three young boys — but the couple hadn’t planned for a pool, and their budget, while large, wouldn’t stretch to cover both the kitchen and pool projects.

For John Jennings, it was a no-brainer.

“He was like, ‘We can do the kitchen anytime,’” his wife remembered. “‘The kids don’t care about our kitchen cabinets. Let’s give them the backyard of their dreams.’”

After a year of careful planning, Beechwood got to work, bringing to life a design that blended lush landscaping reminiscent of the English countryside, thoughtfully arranged hardscaping, and ample space for the kids to play.

“We wanted it to be really beautiful and relaxing, but also a place where the kids can have their friends over and run around, play Wiffle ball, jump in the pool, make s’mores,” Jennings said. (The Wiffle ball field, installed by Beechwood, includes a scoreboard, foul posts, and inground bases.)

Beechwood replaced a small, worn patio with dimensional bluestone, which leads to a charming broken flagstone patio where the family gathers around an oversize fire pit. A loose stone path winds through trellises and English garden areas illuminated by low-voltage lighting.

“The lighting creates a completely different space in the evening, and the garden changes with the seasons,” said Beechwood owner and founder Steve Chepurny, who was the lead designer on the project.

Beechwood installed a “kid patio” with kid-friendly outdoor furniture in front of an existing garden shed that houses sports gear and bikes. The custom gunite pool, a sleek design by Beechwood, was installed by Anthony & Sylvan Pools and features an automatic retractable safety cover accessed by a code. (With three kids under the age of 8, “It was the only way we were doing a pool,” Jennings said.)

The sweetest element of the backyard may also be the smallest: a piece of stone imprinted with the paw of the family’s late dog, Howie, tucked in the bluestone pathway.

But as elements like this nod to the past, others look to the future. Four Natchez crape myrtle trees were planted around the fire pit patio; these will create a canopy over the space as they mature. Climbing roses and clematis will eventually cover the trellises, and four existing limelight hydrangea trees were transplanted so that they can be a focal point of the backyard.

And there’s even more to come: In the fall, Beechwood will begin phase two of the project, which includes a pool pavilion and outdoor kitchen.

“We knew how much we would use the backyard and how much the kids would love it,” Ali Jennings said. “But I don’t think we knew how special it would be when it was all done. I say to John all the time, ‘Can you believe this is our backyard?’”

The Vision: A sophisticated English garden retreat for family and fun

The Timeline: A year of planning, 14 weeks of installation

Three expert tips on how to achieve this look:

Making the most of every outdoor inch in a towering NoLibs home.

When Aeknoor Cheema bought his Northern Liberties home in 2019, it had two tiny balconies, a patio off the kitchen, two small decks — and a 320-square-foot unfinished roof deck.

His first order of business was making the space accessible. So, a few months after moving in, he brought in Dan Bowen, owner of Precision Decks & Remodeling, based in Center City and Turnersville, Gloucester County, to install a circular staircase on one of the side decks. Bowen knew what he was doing; he’d done similar work on many of Cheema’s neighbors’ homes — one roof deck inspiring another, and then another.

Some of Bowen’s roof-deck projects are splashy — stunning sky-high havens flush with features like privacy walls, built-in planters, louvered pergolas, full pilot houses.

But Cheema’s goals were far simpler, and his budget a bit more modest: “It was about having an outdoor space where we could write, entertain, relax, and enjoy a rooftop setting without having to go out anywhere,” he said.

This meant a built-in corner bench for extra seating, lighting, a propane fire pit ringed with Adirondack chairs, and a hammock for lounging.

But the roof deck’s best feature is thanks to aerodynamics: The home’s location — on a narrow side street bordered by tall buildings — essentially places it in a wind tunnel, meaning there’s always a nice breeze on the roof.

“Even when it’s 90 degrees outside, you can still go up there and hang out,” said Cheema, who shares the space with his girlfriend, Yasmeen Sarani.

(The wind isn’t so good for patio umbrellas, though. The couple’s last one snapped within a few weeks.)

As with most home projects, the roof deck remains a work in progress. “In that first year, we learned the hard way that plants don’t survive on the upper deck without an irrigation system,” Cheema said. “So that’s on the punch list.”

For now, most gardening is left to the lower decks, where there is also a grill and additional seating.

“My favorite part is being able to light up the fire and just sit up there and relax in the hammock or even just look off into the city,” Cheema said. “When I built that deck out, you could see the Ben Franklin Bridge on one side and the city on the other side.”

The view has changed since then, a wave of development bringing with it new buildings that disrupt the once-wide panorama. It’s really just a testament to life in the city, where things are always changing — and here they have a front-row seat.

“It’s one of the best spots of the house,” Cheema said.

The Vision: A relaxing hangout space

The Timeline: Four months

Three expert tips on starting your own roof-deck project:

Patio life gets a major upgrade in a historic home.

Kate and Paul Hermans were building upon history when they undertook a renovation of their backyard.

Their Wayne house had deep roots: Designed by renowned architect Frank Furness in 1878, it was the childhood home of Robert L. Montgomery, founder of the Janney Montgomery Scott investment firm whose daughter was the inspiration for A Philadelphia Story.

When the Hermanses bought the property — christened “Lainshaw” by the Montgomery family — in 2015, the prior owners had already expanded upon this history, adding to the rear of the house a copper-roofed, enclosed family room that extended to an elegant patio via a beautiful set of stone steps. (That work was done by Cam Lacy of DCL Architects in Malvern.)

The design was lovely — it even included a built-in hot tub — but it didn’t feel complete.

“My husband loves a good outdoor fire, and that patio was missing an outdoor fireplace,” Kate Hermans said.

It also wasn’t quite big enough to suit their entertaining needs. “We wanted an extension of the living space,” she said.

They brought in Blase DeMichele, the owner of DeMichele Landscape Design Build Company in Media, to extend the patio and create a wood-burning fireplace so they could spend more time, with more people, outside in the space they loved.

“The biggest challenge was matching materials so it didn’t look like someone plopped a fireplace into an older-looking patio,” DeMichele said.

This meant painstaking restoration work, searching quarries for natural materials like bluestone that looked similar to what was already there. The end result? A sweeping, seamless stone patio with space for a showstopping stone fireplace, hot tub, and plenty of seating.

In fact, they used it so much that, five years later, the couple decided to keep going — they hired Newtown Square’s Sharpless Brothers Construction to expand even further. This project included rebuilding a side brick patio and shielding it from the sun with a copper roof dotted with skylights.

“For me, curling up with a book on the side patio during the afternoon is fun,” Hermans said. “And for the two of us, it’s sitting in front of a roaring fire, looking up at the sky and the stars.”

Alas, she’ll miss this outdoor life, as the Hermanses are moving, and soon new owners will be calling Lainshaw home. But, if history repeats itself, even more good things are to come.

The Vision: An indoor/outdoor living space

The Timeline: Two months for phase one; six months for phase two

Looking for a patio glow-up? Follow these tips.