Outdoor landscaping

Here's some outdoor landscaping photos. Click on any photo for large size, and click back on your browser to return to this page.

We live in Aviara. North is up in this picture. The little blue triangle in the upper left corner is the Pacific ocean. Highway 5 is the north-south freeway. The lagoon at the bottom is Batiquitos lagoon which connects to the Pacific.

The second ridge to the East of our house is the Park Hyatt. You can see the Aviara golf course wind it's way around from the hotel West to our house (we're on the 3rd hole) then it goes North and then crosses to the next "valley" and comes back South.

Here's the view of the 3rd hole from our back patio. This hole was personally designed by Arnold Palmer, one of the 2 such holes on the course.

In the distance you can see the hotel.

You can hear the waterfalls that feed the mini-lake from the house, but when the frogs are in season, you can hear them with the windows shut!

Looking SouthEast, you can see the town of La Costa. The street on the South side of the lagoon is La Costa Blvd, and the street it intersects is El Camino Real (the white buildings at the end of the lagoon).

El Camino Real means "The King's Highway" all 21 of the original Spanish missions are on it as it runs from San Diego to Sonoma.

We wanted a spa, but I wanted one that could be left on all the time. By building this enclosure (which is deeper inside), a standard above ground spa was fitted inside, and a wooden deck closed the gap between the brick and the spa itself. There is an opening in the back to access the pumps and electrical parts. It's kept at 102 degrees year round.

There are drains inside the enclosure to keep water from pooling, and allows the draining of the spa easily.

We built a raised patio next to the spa. By raising it, we could look over the back fence, not through it. The patio is covered with Raja multicolor slate. We will eventually cover the rest of the patio in the same fashion.

There is a gas line with a quick release fitting for the heater.

There are also speaker outputs, TV cable, AC power and a network jack at the edge of the patio.

For cold evenings, we wanted a fireplace. I did not want the mess and upkeep and smoke of a wood burning fireplace, so I went gas. What most people don't know is that nice pretty flames don't make much heat. So I used 3 burners instead of one, and added a stainless steel reflector behind the logs. The logs are a special ceramic designed to radiate heat, and have a specially shaped backside to make this happen. I even researched optimal angles on the sides and back to make as much heat come out the front as possible. It works, and looks nice to boot. For those really cold evenings, there is a gas hookup for the patio heater.

We also wanted a barbecue. I notice that many people put thiers at a far corner of the yard, and did not use it much. I put our right outside the door to the house, and it works, my wife cooks half our meals during the week on it. To the right of the grill is a hopper lined with granite matching the countertop. There is a drain in the bottom. Throw several bags of ice and drinks in there and you have a maintenance free cooler. To the right of that you can just make out a fridge. The sink has hot water plumbed from the kitchen in insulated pipes, and I have a garbage disposal with a sewer connection. You can actually prepare an entire meal here.

***need*** updated fountain picture.
When you enter the front, there is a small courtyard. We put this Italian red marble and limestone fountain here. It has a biological filter and will support fish. I put some in once, but a local heron ate them all.

The pump and lights are all fed from a covered pit in the bottom of the fountain. It's waterproofed with Herco rubberized sealant, goes on like thick paint, and is really liquid rubber, and safe for fish. This fountain runs continuously so that mosquitos cannot breed here.

On the North side of the house, outside the dining room, is another courtyard. We built another fountain here, this time of blue marble. It started much smaller, but grew to this size. The horizontal line at the top is a "sheer descent" outlet for the water. The idea was the water would fall into the upper pool, then spill over the rounded area into the lower pool. The top of the rounded area had to be perfectly flat so that the water would flow evenly over the top and cover the entire front. Pretty tricky and we held our breath for the first startup.

Well, it worked great! There is a 150 watt halogen bulb right under the sheer descent illuminating the perfectly smooth, clear waterfall. Then as the water cascades from the upper to the lower pool, a second light illuminates the changing sheets of water. This fountain has a swimming pool filter, bromine water treatment, and a 2 speed spa pump running on the low speed. The water is as clean and clear as a swimming pool, and you can dip in it on a hot day.