Warming Trend: Outdoor Fireplaces

Fireplaces are becoming as important to outdoor spaces as they are to indoor ones. They extend the season in northern climates and take the chill off when the southern sun goes down. But while an indoor fireplace can make a room, an outdoor fireplace needs a room—an outdoor room—where people can gather to enjoy its primal glow.

Rustic Pleasure When the weather’s fine, this gazebo becomes the outdoor great room of a white cedar log home in rural Indiana. Even when the air’s a little nippy, a fire in the big stone fireplace will take the chill off so the owners can enjoy their wooded acreage.

Designed by Town & Country Cedar Homes, the designer/fabricator of the 5,000-square-foot main house, the gazebo contains all the luxuries necessary for fine outdoor living while evoking the rustic simplicity of a classic national park shelter. Within its stone and peeled log confines are an outdoor kitchen with gas grill and rotisserie, sink, and refrigerator. For the owners’ dining pleasure, the space is wired for audio and lighted with an antlered chandelier.

The challenge in this little project, says Doug Tankersley, project manager for David Perrin Builders, was to make the gazebo look like it had always been there. Actually, the fieldstone for the fireplace and column bases came off the owners’ property, so it really had always been there. He kept the modern plumbing and wiring out of sight by concealing them within the roof’s structural system. The peeled logs and roof system match those of the main house and, Tankersley says, are assembled the same way. Builder: David Perrin Builders, Richland, Mich.; Designer/fabricator: Town & Country Cedar Homes, Petoskey, Mich.; Landscape architect: Drost Landscape, Alanson, Mich.; Photographer: Roger Wade Studios.

Ancient Echoes The southwestern version of a gazebo, a ramada is an open, unattached porch that echoes the elements of the region’s Spanish-inspired architecture. This ramada looks as though it could be a relic of Coronado’s march through the Southwest, but it’s really just a few years old. Designer/builder Gary Wyant created this little outdoor fantasy to satisfy his client’s desire for a dramatic outdoor entertaining area.

Photo: Mark Boisclair Wyant created the illusion of a crumbling ruin with tumble-down stone walls skinned in peeling plaster that flank and protect the big stucco gas and wood fireplace. On chilly evenings, guests can sit near the fire on the big stone hearth. More rugged stone clads the columns that support vigas—big rough-sawn beams—that stretch across the corbelled ceiling that provides shade from the desert sun.

Sited next to the swimming pool, the ramada’s stone foundation seems to emerge from the water. Scuppers in the rock wall carry water into the pool, relieving the desert heat with the cool sound of splashing water. The stamped and colored concrete ramada floor spills out to become the pool deck, unifying the elements of this imaginative backdrop for entertaining. Designer/Builder: Calvis Wyant Luxury Homes, Scottsdale, Ariz.; Photographer: Mark Boisclair.

Fire Wall The covered walkway leading from the front door to a towering outdoor fireplace adds drama to a renovated Austin, Texas, ranch house. But this exterior element is more than merely decorative. Architect David Webber used it to resolve two client requirements that threatened to clash: They wanted the existing pool to remain in the front yard, where they also wanted to build a detached garage and auto court.

Webber separated the two uses with a long pergola that provides a generous measure of privacy to the pool area and gives definition to the two spaces. The covered walkway also created a shady play area for the clients’ sun-sensitive children.

The pergola terminates in a wall and fireplace tower that shapes the patio and shelters it from the parking area. The structure is made of local Austin limestone, and surfaces, including the auto court, are sandstone. Webber topped the chimney to match the house with an acid-etched Galvalume roof that seems to float above it. It serves as an orientation point for the other buildings, the architect says. Builder: Renaissance Builders, Houston; Architect: Webber + Studio, Austin, Texas; Landscape architect: Coleman & Associates, Austin; Photographer: Paul Bardagjy.