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DAN AND SANDY HOFFMAN
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Age: Dan (37) Sandy (37)
Married: 10 years.
Employment: Dan, Free-lance writer/stay-at-home dad; Sandy, Electrical engineer
Children: son, 9; daughter, 2; son, 4 months
Nearby Extended Family: Sister and two nephews, ages 12 and10
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hat do you want a pool for? And how do you want to use it?
Sandy: More than anything, we want it to beat the summer heat. And we want to have fun with the kids, and entertain our friends and our kids’ friends.
Do you entertain a lot?
Dan: A fair amount. We have our friends over often with their small kids. If you count our three, we can have six to eight kids at one visit. So the design would obviously have to involve a very kid-friendly pool. We wouldn’t want any very deep water — I think 5 feet at the deepest, but a large shallow end. I’ve seen something — I think it’s called “beach entries?” — where the water comes right up to the rim. It looks great for kids’ safety, but I think it comes real high-end in price, so I don’t know.
How much of the pool would you want to be shallow for the kids?
Dan: Maybe half. By shallow, I think wading height, like 3-1/2 feet high.
Sandy: It might be nice to have things built into the pool, like, maybe little benches and things that are playful for the kids.
Dan: Personally, I’d put a basketball hoop, maybe a hoop and volleyball net combo. OK, that would be for me, really.
Sandy: Uh-huh.
What kind of safety items would you like to build in?
Sandy: Talking about functionality, we’d definitely have to have fencing around the pool.
Dan: Absolutely. We have two sliding glass doors in the back; those would not be considered securing points. I would not want to rely on the closed backdoors as the only security for the kids. We’d need a secure high fence. Four feet, at least, is the regulation. So we’d want a pool fence that meets local code, if the designers could let us know what that is. We need completely code-compliant fencing with a self-closing, self-latching gate.
Do you tend to eat outside only when you have company or family barbecues, or do you often eat outside as a family?
Dan: More usually with company, but hopefully in the future we’ll eat out more with just our family. Small kids make it hard right now. It’s hard with the highchair, but with the yard and great weather, we really look forward to a time soon when we can have more outdoor entertaining and meals.
click on image to enlarge
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BACKYARD STATS
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• Size of backyard: Mostly square backyard measures 75 feet by 85 feet. Large grassy area with children's play equipment that owners want to keep.
• Elevations: Three-tiered terrace with brick walk-way; brick patio on third terrace; cement patio on main level.
• Drainage: Unknown.
• Existing landscaping: Mature plants including full-grown silver maple tree and perimeter shrubs.
• Backyard Access: Sliding glass doors from living room, side pathway. |
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Would you want the poolscape to complement the existing landscape, or be somewhat differentiated?
Dan: I think we would want something simple, and we’re inclined toward matching the look of the landscaping and brick patio. Some ideas from the designers are what we’d be counting on.
What time of day do you expect to use the pool the most? Would you like to use it at nighttime?
Dan: Late morning and most of the afternoon. We’d want nighttime lighting, regardless of whether we use it or not, inside the pool and around the deck — just so we can look out on it at night from the house or patio.
What do you like to look at?
Dan: We have a fair view of the mountains and sunset looking toward the front of our house, to the southwest. There’s no overwhelming need to look in any other direction. If you mean what things we like to look at, it would be things like a stone fish with water coming out of its mouth. But that ups the cost and it’s not a priority.
Sandy: We don’t need cascading water. But I would consider some minimal moving water, maybe a little waterfall, say, 2 feet wide.
Do you travel a lot?
Sandy: No
What are your hobbies?
Sandy: Spending time with the kids, golf, sporting events on TV, listening and playing a little music. I would really like a built-in area, perhaps for a sound system to hook up from the indoor stereo. But we wouldn’t want “natural” speakers like the faux rock speakers I’ve seen.
Do you want a built-in barbecue or pit?
Dan: No, it’s not a priority. We have a gas barbecue. We’re going to be crunched on space as it is.
Do you want a spa?
Sandy: We have an aboveground portable spa, but maybe we could get rid of that and integrate a spa into the pool area.
Do you want a bathhouse?
Dan: Again, there’s really no space for it, but it’s not a bad idea because of us tracking water across the carpet. Space permitting, we could have a small one, maybe just a little room for changing clothes. That might be nice, actually.
Will you be paying someone to service the pool?
Dan: Yes.
Which three colors do you like most?
Sandy: We both like dark earth tones.
Which three plants are your favorites?
Dan: We’d consider more plants, but we’re overscaped as it is. I’d like to pull some; the palm trees are getting too big.
Sandy: Yeah, the third terrace is so nicely landscaped, I think we could design the deck around the existing flora.
Why did you choose your home?
Sandy: Really, it was the size and condition of the backyard rather than the house.
Dan: It’s pretty small for a three-bedroom house.
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| The Hoffman's spa (above) sits on the existing concrete patio. Meanwhile, the upper terrace, which features full-grown landscaping is a favorite viewing area. |
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What do you like about it, architecturally?
Dan: Well, it’s a one-story, simple American house look, built in 1964. We do like the open kitchen leading to the family room, and the windows opening to the backyard. But, mostly, we like the landscape and the large brick patio. The patio is cool — it’s an irregular shape, winding and curving with brick steps. It’s about 50 feet across by 25 feet wide, but then just 6 to 7 feet out at its shortest point.
Which architecture do you like?
Sandy: Spanish and craftsman.
Which architecture do you not like?
Dan: No classical.
Sandy: Or Victorian. We’re more into a modern look. Our furniture is Mission style. The interior decoration is minimalist, really function over form, and needs to be useful rather than look nice. It’s an overwhelming business having three young kids, so we have no matching furniture — out of sheer laziness and out of being overwhelmed!
Dan: Yeah, our priorities are functionality as a family rather than a concern about being artistic. But if we can match aesthetic elements in the yard, that would be nice.
What don’t you like about your backyard?
Sandy: Well, the maple tree makes a mess year ’round and in the fall, the leaves are overwhelming. They’re fairly high maintenance, though the gardener does the bulk of the work. It’s unavoidable, getting leaves in the pool, so I guess we might want a cover for safety as well as to keep the leaves out.
Dan: But that cuts down on the effect because then you don’t see the shimmering water. Without a cover, though, we’d have to be constantly cleaning it out. But the maple would not be over much of the pool.
Do you want the pool close to the backdoor, in mid-yard or away from the house in the far backyard?
Dan: It would be tucked toward the back of the lot, on the northeast side of the lot. The west side is where we have the playground, and we don’t want to move that.
Sandy: I can see a medium-size pool, about 15 to 20 feet from the house where Dan mentioned, in the back on the raised third terrace area — it’s five steps up from patio to mid-yard, then three steps up from mid-yard to third terrace. And the third terrace is about 400 square feet. One possible problem is that there are some pretty tall pine trees there. They’re not our trees, but I guess we could cut them back on our side, and we would have to cut down a magnolia tree there, I think.
Where do you like to sit when you’re in the backyard?
Dan: On the patio, mostly, under the shade tree, and on that third top terrace for sunset views, where the pool would go. It might be good to create a raised sitting area in the back corner on the other side of pool, to look out toward the house and hills and sunset.
How much of the lawn are you willing to lose?
Sandy: Half to a third. We can lose both the upper terrace and the rose garden, but keep the swing set playground area and lower lawn.
How private is your backyard from neighbors?
Dan: It’s pretty private. It’s not an issue. But if we pull some trees, we will lose some privacy. We won’t be skinny-dipping anyway — at least, not in the daytime.
