Austinites’ backyard oasis became ‘godsend’ during coronavirus

Christine and Jeremy Poreca’s jobs took them around the world, from New York City to London to Tokyo to San Francisco. Now they’ve found their paradise in their redone backyard in Austin.

They bought the house near St. Edward’s University in 2016; they were still traveling, but wanted a place to settle down once the job assignments were done. Although the 1961-built home had been updated the year before, the backyard was mainly dead grass, some hedges, stone steps and cement furniture.

It was essentially a blank slate.

The Porecas wanted it to be a place where they could entertain with space to grill and dine and room for a pool.

They also wanted to do it in one step rather than piecemeal. Jeremy Poreca says he wanted “one cohesive thought.”

The couple, who were used to more urban settings without yards, decided to hire Austin Outdoor Design to create a comfortable space for lounging that wouldn’t require a lot of maintenance or gardening know-how.

“We don’t know what we are doing,” Christine Poreca says. “We’ve never maintained a property.”

That meant that Austin Outdoor Design went for native or adaptive plants. They used a clumping bamboo to create a screen between the yard and the neighbor behind it. They used a pinto palm and a dwarf fan palm to give it the feeling of an oasis. Underneath the palms are soft leaf yucca, which are shade tolerant as the palms grow. They used trailing germander and bicolor irises to add greenery all year as well as pops of floral color at certain times of the year.

The makeover was completed in March, right as Austin was getting stay-at-home orders because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Porecas’ yard was scheduled to be on Saturday’s Austin Outdoor Living Tour, which was later canceled.

One of the things the Porecas wanted was a pool that was big enough to soak in but didn’t take up the whole yard. They went with a plunge pool to one side that allows for some swimming but in reality is more a place to hang out and cool off; it doesn’t waste the space of a larger pool.

“We are very pragmatic people,” Jeremy Poreca says.

The design for the yard has many different conversation areas. There’s the dining area on the patio with a grill; the fireplace area with built-in L-shaped bench and storage underneath and a chiminea; the pool area; and the game space, for things like bean bag tosses or for the dogs to run.

Gretchen Leigh Du Pre, the design project manager at Austin Outdoor Design who worked on this project, says they wanted to make the design aesthetic of the backyard reflective of the midcentury home and its color palette as well as the whole neighborhood. It was designed to be “warm and inviting, the way a backyard should be,” Du Pre says.

Before, the yard felt cramped and dated, not at all complementary of the update the home had gone through.

Now, Du Pre says, “it feels spacious and a totally perfect party spot.”

The backyard has been a godsend, the Porecas say, during this time of staying at home.

“I felt bad. A lot of people are miserable,” Jeremy Poreca says. “This is wonderful.”