What the judges thought: Water, fire, cooking and dining — it’s all here and masterfully arranged in a space that exemplifies outdoor living. The hot tub looks at home in its naturalistic environment. The designer made clever use of the multiple tiers to maximize the hot tub’s usability and simplify maintenance.
Upgrading a downgrade: Designer Kelly Mathison had approximately 40 feet of usable space between the back door and a steep embankment. But he managed to pack plenty of lifestyle amenities into the small footprint by terracing the slope into three distinct levels designed for cooking, eating, soaking and fireside chats, overlooking Idaho’s Hayden Lake.
The layout was meant to provide guests a view of the cascading waterfeature no matter where they sit — a goal that was nearly achieved. They can take in the sights from the portable spa, the fire pit and the seating arrangement up top.
To maximize space, the retaining walls were made to serve dual purposes. One formed the concrete backside of the built-in grill, which also was backfilled with earth to hold up the third-tier patio. The second wall, made of boulders around the firepit below, also supports the second level and provides seating.
One unexpected challenge: Upon excavation, the crew encountered nearly a dozen logs of felled timber below ground. These had to be removed. “If we wouldn’t have found it, it would’ve been a disaster because it would’ve settled,” Mathison says.
The designer likes to sink a hot tub in most every project he does. Here, the tiered patio allowed him to set the spa flush with the ground on the middle level, and fully aboveground on the lower tier, where the cabinet is mostly hidden behind large boulders. This allows easy access.
