Backyard Zen Resort
Westfield, NJ · Indoor/Outdoor Living
The Home
A 1990s house on a quiet Westfield street with genuinely good bones — original six-inch-thick walls of locally mined stone. The owners have lived in Westfield for three decades; with three children, four grandchildren and two English springer spaniels, the property is, as New Jersey Monthly put it, party central.
Client Goal
The trigger was prosaic: the pool was leaking and falling apart after two decades, and it had to be fixed. But the yard around it had its own problems — overgrown planting, uneven hardscaping, flooring that did not relate to itself, and a weathered patio with drainage trouble. Rather than patch the pool, the owners asked for the whole yard to work: resort-like, somewhere their four grandchildren would want to come, and easy to maintain between visits to their Florida and Jersey Shore homes.
Solution
MRC and Ellie Mroz Design reimagined the entire backyard in 2022 as a set of outdoor rooms rather than a pool with furniture around it: a 16-by-40 Gunite pool with a fire-bowl accent wall running its length, a built-from-scratch stone fireplace with a cluster of seating, a covered pergola dining area, a corner Jacuzzi, and a putting green with a sand trap beyond the pool.
Construction
Matching the existing house was the hard part. Its stone came from a quarry thirty years ago, so new stone had to be ordered from several different suppliers and blended to get the mix right — the fireplace alone was built from stone meticulously harvested across vendors to match. Drainage and levels were corrected rather than resurfaced. The fireplace burns wood but was also fitted with gas logs, so it gets used on an ordinary evening and not only on an occasion.
Design
The material decisions were made against Jersey weather and the way the family actually uses the space. Ocean-blue marble was sourced from a quarry in Turkey, arriving through the worst of the COVID container shortage. The dining table is concrete made to read as live-edge teak — the upkeep of real teak was not wanted, and the first version had to be redesigned once it was clear the proportions would not suit the wide wicker chairs. Upholstery is performance fabric in tan and light gray, chosen to mask dirt. Lighting is layered, down to a string for the corner Jacuzzi.
Result
Two fireplaces and weatherproof furniture make the backyard usable year-round, not seasonally. Even in frigid months the family and their guests are out there roasting marshmallows by the glow of gas-lit firebowls. Swimming, barbecuing, dining and lounging each have their own place, which is what lets a three-generation gathering happen without anyone being in the way.