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Firepit and wire fox terrier with hardscape and landscape to exterior dining terrace at raised deck beyond

“I love the look of mass plantings,” notes Neely, near Mexican feather grasses--which thrive on the sunny lot.

Greenery at the entrance of the home.

A young couple, their son, and two rescue beagles model a grounded lifestyle from their Venice, California tiny home.

Gently graded steps covered in pine needles wander through the home’s L-shaped garden, designed by landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh. A

Chickens foraging in an enclosed garden with vertical planters.

Now, an eight-foot sliding door brings light into the kitchen and enables fluid movement between inside and out. The wider steps can serve as seats during a party, and they make for a graceful transition to the yard.

The expansive, covered patio that extends from the living space features an outdoor kitchen and adjoining pizza oven. “My favorite aspect of the project was that the clients embraced the idea that home can be more than just shelter,” says architect Cavin Costello. “It can be a place that incentivizes you to socialize, think, eat, work, create, and play differently.”

In addition to its rear deck, which features an outdoor kitchen and hot tub and capitalizes on stunning ocean views, the Surf House in Santa Cruz, California, includes a sunny front patio that’s tucked between a customized surfboard storage unit and a garage.

"The semi-public front porch projects out from the front of the house to grab views of the 'camel head' part of the mountain,

Nathalie and Greg perch on the front steps on a sunny summer day.

To his credit, the original owner and builder of an ’80s-era home in Byron Bay, Australia, kept it “in pretty good nick,” as designer Micka Etheridge puts it. “He’d dusted the window frames once a week for thirty-five years.” Etheridge took that same care expanding the house for its new owners, Cheryl and James Kitchener, who love its greenery and mellow, vintage vibe.

The Smiths’ new cabin, designed by Risa Boyer Architecture and completed in 2020, sits in the same spot as their previous home, on five acres on Mount Veeder, in Northern California. Somehow, the red chicken coop, which is constructed of wood, survived the fire with the chickens still alive inside.

The garage’s huge doors had been covered up, so Studio Karhard freed up the openings for steel-and-glass doors from Ferrotec.