A garden with room for everyone

The pool is the long view from the California room, but it is not the only destination in this Alamo garden. Beyond it are places to cook, sit by a fire, play basketball and tend vegetables. Montgomery Robbins arranged the one-acre property as a sequence of outdoor spaces tied to the hacienda-style house.

The firm's Percy project combines formal geometry with a broad family brief. The entry draws on the scalloped forms of the architecture; the main living areas use straighter lines. That shift allows the arrival to feel composed while the backyard accommodates several kinds of activity.

Starting with the open room

The covered California room faces directly toward the water. Furniture sits back beneath the roof, leaving the pool and planting in view. Outside, the paved terrace continues the living space without repeating its enclosure. The relationship is clear even when no one is using it: shelter close to the house, open ground beside the pool.

The outdoor kitchen, bar and dining area form another cluster. Two grills were included for a family member with a food allergy. It is a specific household requirement that changes the plan, rather than an extra appliance added for display.

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The pool is part of the view from the covered living room. · Montgomery Robbins

Giving play its own boundary

A basketball court and playhouse sit within the larger landscape, with walls, gates and screening planting helping define their edges. The court's tall fence has a practical role, but the planting around it also keeps recreation from dominating every view of the garden.

Raised vegetable beds introduce a smaller scale nearby. Their dark frames repeat some of the garden's stronger lines, while the planting is informal and changeable. The shift makes the property feel used rather than arranged around a single showpiece.

In the evening photographs, low wall lighting and the illuminated pergola describe the edges of the outdoor rooms. There are several ways to occupy the acre, but the house, pool and principal terrace remain easy to understand as one composition.