Designing A Home For Outdoor Fall Living

Mala Sander, an associate broker with Corcoran, is shifting gears for how she shows an open house now that the fall is here. She said it’s the perfect time of the year to highlight a home’s blend of indoor and outdoor spaces.

Outdoor spaces are becoming something just short of additional rooms in a house, with their own kitchens and living areas meant for entertaining. French doors and floor-to-ceiling windows that have traditionally been used to allow homeowners to enjoy the vistas of their landscaping now double as “large walls of light,” Ms. Sanders said, illuminating outdoor dinettes.

“A lot of these outdoor spaces have fire pits with gas lines that can be turned on with a remote control, and outdoor fireplaces, and that’s basically what homebuyers are looking for going into the fall,” Ms. Sander said.

For instance, take a nearly 6,000-square-foot home she is representing on Upper Seven Ponds Road in Water Mill. The traditional two-story manse includes lavish furnishings in the entry parlor, a great room, a formal dining room, a large country kitchen with breakfast nook, seven bedrooms and eight bathrooms. But the gem of the 2.8-acre property is the expansive grounds, complete with an apple orchard.

Outdoor living is experienced from covered decking, a pool house, an outbuilding with a bar area, and a heated pool. In the evenings, light pours out on the garden from the French doors in the bedroom and tall great room windows.

For homeowners who don’t currently have fall-friendly spaces, Ms. Sander said it can be an easy, inexpensive fix to make an outdoor area cozy.

“Some of the screened porches have the ability to pop out the screens and put in glass for three-season living there. Some spaces might be designed with radiant heat in the floor of the patios,” she said. “For instance, most people have gas lines running to their pool heaters, or they have gas lines running to their barbecue anyway, so it’s not a big deal to add a gas line to run to a fireplace. It’s not that expensive—a couple of thousand dollars and you’re in business.”

Yale Fishman, a developer and owner of Hamptons Luxury Estates LLC, said the same holds true for new builds. On Duck Pond Lane in Southampton Village, Mr. Fishman is laying the foundation for a house with the outdoors in mind, including a fireplace, outdoor kitchen, pergola and pool house in the plans.

He said no longer is he focused on building a home merely for the summer resident of the Hamptons.

“It is a major cooperation between architects, engineers, designers and tradesmen to plan and design the infrastructure at the very beginning stages to get to the end stages so that homeowners can check all of the amenities they want off of their wish list for a perfect year-round home,” Mr. Fishman said.

He said there are many ways to design the outdoor living space. For instance, at a recent build on David Whites Lane in Southampton, the backyard already has the underground work done for a waterfall fire pit next to the pool to complement the fireplace in the pool house. An additional fireplace can be installed by the outdoor kitchen or living room space.

“There are a lot of things you can do with the outdoor space today, because a lot of people are looking to entertain all year-round,” Mr. Fishman said. “And it all starts with an outdoor kitchen.”

“More and more new builds do have that year-round vibe, and especially by having outdoor spaces like patios and fireplaces,” Ms. Sander said. “I don’t know of any houses that are being built anymore just as a summer cottage, like back in the day.”

When it comes to filling a home, Kristen Farrell of Kristen Farrell Home Design said a key feature of many of her projects is to mimic the aesthetic and color palette of the outdoor and the indoor living spaces to make it feel like one space.

“We are all used to living inside,” Ms. Farrell said. “How are we living outside? So whether that is the outdoor fire pit that becomes an evening destination either for adults with a glass of wine and great conversation, or kids are going out there and making s’mores, it’s an added experience. The same holds true for just sitting around a pool. You have amazing umbrellas, so if you are not a sun person you can be comfortable in the shade.”

Last month, Ms. Farrell sold a Water Mill property for $8.2 million. She held a benefit in July at the south-of-the-highway estate to show off appliances and furnishings from partners, which she used to stage the house. It was hard to miss the outdoorsy vibe of the modern farmhouse, complete with a kitchen and living room by the pool and under the sun.

“The Hamptons is about lifestyle, and that lifestyle is about enjoying the outdoors in this beautiful place where we live,” she said. “So you want the comforts of home, but you want the outside as well, whether that means you are creating an outdoor living room that has a TV, or just a really nice entertaining space, or having the outdoor kitchens. So, even though you are serving dinner, you are still getting to experience the outdoors rather than getting stuck inside.”

For now, Ms. Sander will promote fall in the Hamptons to interested homebuyers by keeping patios warm with remote-starter fire pits and keeping pools heated.

“Soon, we are even going to need a snow shovel to show houses,” she laughed.