Transforming a Front Yard into a View-Focused Outdoor Living Space

A spectacular view goes to waste without an inviting outdoor space to enjoy it. When Barry Schenker and Diana Rebman moved into their new Berkeley home, the front yard offered a stunning panorama of the San Francisco skyline and the Golden Gate Bridge. Yet the small, walled-in yard—just a patch of turf and mud—was so unappealing that the couple only admired the vista from inside.

They enlisted their neighbor, landscape architect Stefan Thuilot, to turn the uninviting area into a comfortable outdoor living room. Thuilot replaced the lawn with square-cut Connecticut bluestone pavers, leaving planting cutouts around the perimeter and for a water feature. A concrete-and-stainless-steel fountain, tucked into one corner, includes a built-in redwood bench and serves as a focal point visible from both the front entrance and the interior. "Your eye is drawn to it from the front entrance and also from indoors," Thuilot explains. The fountain beckons you outside; once there, you naturally pause to take in the view.

A steel-and-stucco arbor atop the existing wall adds a sense of enclosure, especially now that a wisteria vine drapes over it. The arbor also improves the home's street presence. Before its installation, the tall house with sparse plantings looked ungrounded, says Rebman. The vine-covered arbor visually reduces the home's imposing scale, as do a creeping fig climbing the walls, a Japanese maple at one end of the courtyard, and, just outside the wall, a 'Meyer' lemon tree and a grove of 'Swan Hill' olive trees.

Beyond the Wall

On the upper slope just beyond the wall, near the redwood bench, Thuilot concentrated the most colorful plantings. 'Garnet' penstemon, Pride of Madeira, and other flowering plants appear as an extension of the courtyard, providing "still another really great view," notes Rebman. Across the rest of the slope, bamboo, miscanthus, and blue oat grass add texture. At the slope's base, a stepped retaining wall faced with Napa basalt and capped with bluestone minimizes the street's downward slope.

Tips for Small Yards

Frame Views

An arbor with stucco columns and steel crossbars won't necessarily block a property's views—Thuilot's design proves it. By selectively framing a portion of the view, the columns encourage closer attention. Enhancing an outside view makes a small space feel larger.

Keep the Background Monochromatic

Bluestone paving, the arbor's painted metal, the stainless steel fountain, and the weathered redwood bench all share a gray-to-blue-gray palette. There's enough material variety for visual interest, but individual elements don't compete for attention in a compact space.

Add Mass

The instinct with small yards is to choose only low, compact plants. But that can make a space appear even smaller, especially against a large house. Some height and heft—like the 'Golden Goddess' bamboo and ornamental grasses Thuilot used—provide necessary ballast.

Think Vertically

To make the small courtyard feel more garden-like, Thuilot encouraged creeping fig to climb the walls and trained wisteria to arch overhead. Planting pockets and pots contain upright growers such as horsetail and dwarf papyrus; they green the walls without crowding the hardscape.

Design: Huettl-Thuilot Associates, Berkeley (510/848-3200).