Life Outside the Box

When I was a child, I had fantasies of living permanently outside, in a Girl Scout tent or maybe a crude hut made with leftover wood from one of my dad’s building projects. I’d live off whatever food I could find, cooking it over a campfire. At night, I’d unroll my Girl Scout sleeping bag.

It was a dream of self-sufficiency that, like many children’s dreams, ignored realities--like loneliness, school, my parents, even my brother and sister, who would never have stood by while I got to do things they couldn’t.

Yet in a way, my dream made perfect sense. I was a California child in the 1960s. We lived in a housing tract in San Jose that had been carved out of a walnut orchard. Front and back, every pastel-colored house had a sheltering tree that showered oily nuts on the grass. Indoors, we had a modern all-electric kitchen; outside, a concrete deck, complete with brick fireplace.

On summer nights, the whole neighborhood was out barbecuing, each family clamoring around picnic tables, voices and radios mingling in the air with the smell of meat and a sense of giddy freedom. Even my parents, usually strict about bedtime, prolonged these nights. Once, in the flickering dark of 9 o’clock, my dad suggested that we “sleep outside under the stars.”

Oddly, I can’t remember if we did. But the phrase lives in my mind, an expression of reckless, thrilling possibility, right up there with “circumnavigate the globe,” or “walk on the moon” in its hint of a mysterious yet manageable--and somehow friendly--cosmos.

Such a view may come naturally to Californians, in particular, Angelenos. We, more than those in tougher climates, can stay outside--to sleep, eat, sit around, usually whenever we want to. For us, nature is benign. In winter, our skies don’t fling down snow, or even too much rain; bugs don’t descend in droves for summer, and it’s rarely cold in any season. And since enough people have moved here from somewhere else--places bitter-cold, tornado-ridden, buggy--we’re familiar with what we’re missing and feel blessed. But this goes beyond weather. In a harder, more vertical city like New York, you tend to see yourself in relation to buildings, paving, other people. We in L.A., given our sprawling, garden-rich views, have a more active relationship with trees and other greenery, and the shocking pink of bougainvillea. These don’t have to be, strictly speaking, ours. Because they’re everywhere.

If some do belong to us, so much the better. Here, any outdoor space, a balcony or small back porch, can become a garden, a ready, year-round escape hatch from the loud demands of indoor life. This doesn’t mean that when we go outside, we don’t take our indoor lives along. For some Angelenos, the garden is simply another version of the house, equipped with an alfresco kitchen, dining room or fire pit, perhaps even a shower and bed. Laptops and Internet hookups are sneaking into lounging nooks. Televisions are popping up under pergolas.

While some may wring their hands at such desecration of a “natural” scene, others see this as part of a long progression, the modern trappings of an old concept. The ancient Egyptians and Romans built gardens as open-air extensions of the house. Medieval Europeans had walled courtyards, and Spain is famous for its sunny, secluded patios. In Southern California, as Los Feliz landscape designer Melinda Taylor reminds us, “our outdoor living model is based on the Mediterranean idea of cool, enclosed spaces with paths and flowing water.” To the Spanish missionaries, she adds, outdoor cooking, especially when it was hot, was entirely practical.

There are precedents, too, for using the outdoors for inspiration, walking and thinking, say, as the ancient Greeks used to do. Joseph Marek, who designs gardens in Santa Monica, notes that while laptops may be recent inventions, writing in the open air is “a time-honored” practice. What’s more, he says, “Just about anything that gets you out into your garden can probably be seen as good.”

Given a choice, whatever they do out there, most people try to weave some privacy into the program. Potted trees or hanging plants might screen a condominium balcony from neighbors. In the case of a house, the English landscape movement of the 18th and 19th centuries gave us the lasting legacy of the public-facing front lawn. So our fenced, secluded backyards are where we spend our garden time. These retreats are often linked to interior rooms via glass doors and rear decks that blur the line between indoors and out, encouraging the perception of the garden as the continuation of a sheltered space.

This was a big concern to certain mid-20th century California architects-- Richard Neutra, Thornton Ladd and A. Quincy Jones, among them--who sometimes gave garden-oriented rooms the sliding walls of airy pavilions.

The popularity of mid-century style today has renewed this interest in a strong indoor-outdoor connection. It’s a model for living that appeals not only to high-end architects and those who came of age during the ‘50s and ‘60s, but also to younger people who appreciate the spare but stylish mid-century aesthetic. Equally simple and understated is a complementary landscape approach developed decades ago by garden-makers such as Thomas Church and Garrett Eckbo. In the post-World War II years, with house sizes shrinking and families growing, their practical, informal gardens catered to the outdoor lives of people who wanted to grill dinner as they watched their kids bike around the patio.

This isn’t far from what many of us want now. In order of preference, says Los Angeles landscape architect Sasha Tarnopolsky of Dry Design, “my clients ask for outdoor dining spots, water features and fireplaces. They want areas that are interesting and challenging for children but sophisticated enough for grown-ups’ parties.”

Such an agenda, of course, is hardly limited to those with means to hire designers. KB Home, formerly known as Kaufman & Broad, the L.A.-based national builder specializing in entry-level home developments, offers its buyers optional outdoor amenities such as patios and decks for garden living. In response to customer demand, the company plans to expand the options list to include built-in barbecues, patio covers and paving options. In certain master-planned communities (such as Amerige Heights in Fullerton), KB provides residents with communal greenbelts, sports fields, playgrounds and even formal flower gardens with benches for whiling away an afternoon.

Naturally, if you do have the means, you can create your own greenbelt, not to mention a dining pavilion, a rushing stream or an ozone-filtered swimming pool. With professional help, you can install radiant-heated terrace floors to take the edge off chilly nights and an automated computer-controlled lighting system. You can augment your high-tech gas grill with a rotisserie, an adjacent cooktop, a refrigerator, a plate-warmer and a sink.

Outdoor cooking in itself has taken a leap forward since the ‘60s and become something of a trendy pastime among people raised, like me, in an era that glorified frozen food and processed meat. The outdoor menu can be just as complicated as what you’d serve inside. But does this mean you need two kitchens?

My friend Jacob Epstein, a Los Feliz screenwriter who grew up in New York City and gives legendary barbecues, says no. “I’m a minimalist outside,” he explains. “I load the mesquite into my basic Weber, arrange corn around the grill’s edge and put the meat or chicken in the middle. It burns hot, it smells good, it makes me feel like I’m in the Wild West.”

For sauces, salads and other side dishes that require a sink and stove, he and his wife, Susie Norris, a television executive, use their well-equipped indoor kitchen, which opens conveniently onto their garden.

But another backyard L.A. chef I know, who wasn’t satisfied with mere garden grilling, had an outdoor kitchen installed with the help of Kitchens Del Mar in Orange County. With a set-up that includes a combination grill-stove, indoor-outdoor refrigerator, sink with garbage disposal, black-granite counters and plenty of storage space, he augments his favorite grilled fish with pureed soups, frittatas and pastas. “It’s really a brave new world out there,” he says.

While each carefully chosen tool in his outdoor kitchen has a purpose, this isn’t always the case at other homes. “An outdoor kitchen can be little more than a status symbol,” says Tarnopolsky, “stuff for the sake of stuff.” Brushed-steel appliances can also mar the serenity of flower borders. And they’re often too big to hide.

Not that many of us have to try. An outdoor kitchen can top $40,000. And considering the available space--maybe a few yards behind the house--we’re better off buying sturdy weatherproof furniture. Along with a tall shade tree and leafy vine, this makes the garden inviting year-round, even when you’re inside looking out. “Even a picture of relaxation can calm you down,” observes Taylor.

The tiniest space can invite you to sit, says Barry Gilbert, CEO of Smith & Hawken, national purveyor of garden furnishings. Gilbert reports that his company’s best-seller in L.A. is the Saranac lounge, an ample teak chair with optional well-padded cushions. Close behind is a dish-shaped copper fire pit that can double as movable fireplace or barbecue grill. “People are realizing that the garden may be the largest room they have,” says Gilbert.

Furnishing this room has become a multibillion-dollar business, reports Becky Boswell Smith, editor-in-chief of Casual Living, a trade magazine that tracks the outdoor furniture market. Its first-ever national survey, which covered the year 2000, showed annual sales of $5.3 billion, with barbecue grills accounting for 50%, outdoor dining sets 21%, garden lighting 11% and lounge chairs 6%. Discount department stores such as Kmart and Target were the No. 1 source for these, with specialty patio stores second and home-improvement centers (such as Home Depot) third, followed by department and hardware stores. Catalog, mail-order, Internet and TV sales combined accounted for only 3% of the business. “Customers still want to touch and feel the chair they’re going to sit in,” says Smith.

Where do most of these customers live? California, according to the American Furniture Manufacturers Assn., which recently reported that Californians bought almost a quarter of all outdoor furniture sold nationwide last year.

The hottest sellers on the market include chairs, tables and loungers made of cast aluminum, wrought iron, teak and woven resin, which resembles wicker but holds up better in inclement weather. And though you can spend thousands on a single outdoor chair, it needn’t cost the earth to furnish a garden. In Casual Living’s survey, the median price of a five-piece dining set at a discount department store was $200.

Why stop there? Jackie Hirschhaut, a spokesperson for the furniture-makers association, says that “many consumers are not searching for just a piece or two for the patio, but for entire groups that allow them to furnish their outdoor space similar to the way they would an interior room.”

Yet other outdoor living trends reflect the yearnings of the ages, impulses that have long drawn people outside. Though we may not have hours to garden, we want contact with plants. True, thanks to our busy schedules, we tend to focus, as Thomas Church did, on low-maintenance foliage. But the current popularity of variegated plants reflects our fascination with pattern and texture. We don’t want to be bored. Nor do urban parents want to shortchange their children on tactile interactions with nature. “My clients with kids want rocks, gravel pits, wild and un-manicured spots,” Taylor points out.

More people seem interested in growing food, getting in touch, as Tarnopolsky says, “with the endlessly cycling seasons.” She also notes that bathing outdoors is up there on the pleasure scale with picking fruit off your own tree. Like standing under a waterfall. Or running through sprinklers on a hot day.

Yes, you do need a permit to build an outdoor shower. But you don’t need one to mount a hose bib six feet high--which is what a neighbor of ours did when we lived for two years in Topanga Canyon during the late ‘80s. Every morning, just past dawn, the hefty, gray-haired woman would stride out naked to her rather public side yard and stand in the cold torrent, communing with the elements. Water, weak sun, the strong smell of eucalyptus. As if these were everything a person needed to thrive in this world.