Family Hearth Moves to the Backyard

[Brownian Motion]

The New York Times

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March 21, 2007

Family Hearth Moves to the Backyard

By CHRISTOPHER MAAG

BATH, Ohio, March 15 — Doug Weintraub loves showing off his new $60,000 fireplace. It is in his backyard, with a chimney, built by a stonemason from Ukraine, that stands 16 feet tall.

Beside the hearth is a cubby stocked with firewood “just for looks,” Mr. Weintraub said. As he pressed the “on” button of a remote control, a hissing sound could be heard, then the gas-burning fireplace sprang to flame, visible from inside the house.

Mr. Weintraub, a technology investor, then cranked up the volume on the fireplace’s built-in stereo system, and a meandering saxophone riff reverberated off his $2 million home and across the neighborhood. The Weintraubs said they considered building a waterfall into the fireplace, but decided that might be too extravagant.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Mr. Weintraub said.

It’s more than cool. It’s cold. Even beside the blazing fire on Ohio’s warmest day in months, it is just too brisk to stand outside without hopping on one leg and wondering about frostbite. “Obviously, we can’t use it much in the winter,” said Mr. Weintraub’s wife, Janis, arms wrapped against her waist for warmth.

There are backyard Jacuzzis and backyard pergolas, and eight-burner stoves built into backyard kitchens. Now homebuyers of large means, and the landscapers who serve them, find themselves facing the latest in outdoor home accessorizing, the backyard fireplace.

No humble pits-in-the-ground, these. The new breed of outdoor fireplace has evolved rapidly from a stone chimney, about 10 feet tall, and a starting price of around $8,000. In the last 18 months they have begun to sprout refrigerators, surround-sound stereo systems, and fireboxes to display lumber that is rarely actually burned because most homeowners prefer the convenience of gas.

The amenities and the costs grow apace. A contractor in the San Francisco area, Tony Bertotti, built an $80,000 fireplace as the centerpiece of a $750,000 patio that was recently named best landscape in the state by the California Landscape Contractors Association.

“All of a sudden, outdoor fireplaces have become the really hot thing,” said Larry Rohlfes, the association’s assistant executive director.

In a national survey of 600 people in households earning $75,000 or more, StandPoint, a marketing researcher, found that 16 percent have a fire installation like a fire pit or fireplace in their backyards.

The trend has local and state officials scrambling to catch up. The Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District will ban all new wood-burning fireplaces starting in October unless the units have federally certified inserts to reduce fine-particulate pollution, said a spokeswoman, Christina Ragsdale.

Fire pits have been popular for years, especially in California and the South, where a small blaze makes it possible to relax outside on cool winter nights. What is surprising (some say foolish) is that the demand for free-standing fireplaces seems strongest in Northern states. where winters are too cold for backyard fireplaces to do any good, and summers are too hot to use them.

The tall stone chimneys suck the smoke up and away; most of the heat escapes up the chimney, too.

“Why would you put a fireplace outside without some kind of enclosure to trap the heat?” asked Bill Peregrine, construction manager for In Harmony Landscapes in Bothell, Wash., who has built outdoor fireplaces with partial enclosures.

When Noël Stubblefield, a painter, and her husband, Rick, a venture capitalist, built a fireplace behind their $13.5 million house in Marin County, Calif., four years ago, it was among the first. Today there are four in the neighborhood. Their chimney stands 22 feet tall. On cool winter Sundays, Ms. Stubblefield enjoys lounging in front of the fire and watching football on television.

“The fireplace is actually very large,” she said. “You could put a pig inside it and roast it.”

Not that she needs it for cooking. Next to the fireplace is a full kitchen.

No one knows exactly why so many people are building outdoor fireplaces, but theories abound. With interest rates climbing and home sales slow, “people who thought about moving are staying put and investing in their homes,” said Jim Weidner, owner of the Weidner Group landscaping company in North Ridgeville, Ohio.

Back when houses had one television set, that was a powerful force pulling families together. As entertainment options multiply, many families say an old-fashioned fire still provides a magnetic attraction.

Kevin Lurie, a health insurance consultant who built a 14-foot fireplace behind his home in Solon, a Cleveland suburb, said, “It’s the only way I can get my three kids to unplug from their iPods, computers, video games and TiVo and actually spend time together.”

They may also may be a way for busy, well-educated, well-to-do families to connect with deeper things, said Barbara Risman, chairwoman of the sociology department at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and executive officer of the Council on Contemporary Families.

“People put a lot of thought these days into how to construct family rituals that are really high-quality, because the time they spend together is not much,” Ms. Risman said.

Some landscapers doubt that their clients’ motives are quite so pure. “A lot of this is about status,” said Paul Dorko, co-owner of Hidden Valley Nursery in Stockton, N.J.

But sometimes the desire for the latest backyard accessory backfires. A neighbor’s complaint about Mr. Lurie’s fireplace led to a political squabble in Solon. And some 8 to 20 homeowners in Solon have ignored a citywide ban on outdoor fireplaces, said the planning commission chairman, Bill Maser. A ballot initiative in November will allow voters to decide whether to legalize the fireplaces.

“This all seems a little silly,” Mr. Lurie said. “All we want to do is enjoy a fire.”

[Man with the Golden Arm]

big deal ...

we used to have one in our yard when i was a kid!

[king ubu]

Maybe if their bored they can roast their spouses in there?