Clean Slate

When Ken Kushmider, a Landscape Design Associates licensed landscape architect and contractor, had an initial meeting with a Wadsworth homeowner, the potential client had an ambitious plan in mind.

The homeowner envisioned modifying a quarter of his acre property, removing a wooden deck and screened-in gazebo off the back of the house and replacing it with a 2,000-square-foot-plus patio. He said the new patio had to be large enough to accommodate a 30-by-30-foot tent for big gatherings, a new 18-by-30-foot pavilion and a new 16-by-16-foot card house while complementing his brick colonial home. 

“He wanted to remove the old deck and take everything off the back of the house and start over,” Kushmider says. “The homeowner wanted a refined look and wanted it to match the house.”

Kushmider brought that grand vision to life with a stone paver patio, a pavilion with a full complement of kitchen appliances, space for a small wrought-iron patio dining set, a three-season card house and raised garden beds to grow vegetables. There’s a red brick walkway to the patio as well as walls and accents of red brick — all selected to match the brick home.

Here are some highlights of the complete overhaul.

PAVILION KITCHEN: The piece de resistance in the project was a new pavilion, with a coffered custom ceiling, granite countertops, outdoor barbecue, refrigerator, sink and pizza oven. The homeowner makes pizza sauce from tomatoes grown in a new raised 8-by-16-foot planter bed that produces amazing tomatoes because it has three inches of leaf debris and sticks at the bottom, three inches of pea gravel and eight inches of super topsoil. The pavilion also features shelves and cupboards built into brick masonry walls that match the nearby stone fireplace, which also has a red-brick rim. “The homeowner wanted a total utilization of space,” Kushmider says.

PAVILION TECH: There’s a 60-inch TV above the pavilion fireplace, a full sound system and low-voltage lighting. There’s also a mosquito-repellent system, which is one of the only parts of the project that was subcontracted. “It works like an irrigation system, but repellent is shot out of the nozzles instead of water,” Kushmider says. “It turns on twice a day for 30 seconds.”

THREE-SEASON CARD HOUSE:

The previous gazebo was replaced with a three-season card house, where friends gather to play games and relax. The interior is all-weather, with green walls and a floor made of the same Unilock Beacon Hill pavers used throughout the project. Landscaping around it includes flower beds that use some of the yard’s existing topsoil and a walkway that uses flagstone. “We always try to salvage material,” Kushmider says.