Enjoying the Wide Array of Surfaces for Outdoor Spaces
Opinion Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer’s interpretation of facts and data.
By Bill Primavera
Perhaps it’s an inherited or genetic trait, but I have always been fascinated by the possibilities for surfaces outside.
My father was a flooring specialist, focused on such materials as cement, linoleum and terrazzo. At work in shipyards, he applied his craft on flight decks of aircraft carriers and state rooms of luxury liners.
At home, we had our own flooring specialist who always gave us fabulous kitchen floors. I remember one in particular, which had a fancy teapot cutout in the middle of the floor.
And outside we always had great front porches and patios, laid out by an expert.
I remember how happy I was when my father described how passionately he loved his work. He once described to me the excitement of surveying the needs and methods for a flooring job to be done, taking measurements and preparing the material to be laid.
He was not educated beyond the second grade, but was inherently very smart. While basically a quiet man, he had a deep, even thunderous voice when he did speak. Besides that, he was bilingual, speaking both Italian and English. (It was funny that my mother, who was born in Italy, had no Italian accent, having come to America when she was five, but my dad who was born in Philadelphia had a slight Italian accent, having spoken it at home.)
At any rate, having grown up with these impressions of enjoying materials underfoot, I couldn’t wait until I could apply some of what I had observed. It started while I still lived in Brooklyn Heights where I had the good fortune to buy my first home. (I say good fortune, because my wife and I managed to purchase a two-family, historic home there with literally no money in the bank. How we did that is fodder for another story.)
A broad cement sidewalk came flush against the building when we first bought the home, but wanting to have a more correctly historic look, I had some friends in construction dig up that sidewalk (I never asked permission from any city agency and I’m not sure I had to) and sought to replace it with slabs of old bluestone, which probably had been the original material used there. My two construction guys assured me that they could find some old slabs of bluestone, and indeed they did.
To add a note of history, I bordered that bluestone with several rows of cobblestones, which I found sitting idle at a construction site in Manhattan. I borrowed a friend’s car (I was strictly a subway guy at the time) and scurried back and forth to my home in Brooklyn Heights, with one load after another of those old stones that had originally been used as ballast when returning to Europe after having delivered all kinds of manufactured goods to the early colonies.
My wife and I enjoyed indescribable pleasure from our second-story window when we heard two passersby comment on our stretch of sidewalk maintained “as it originally was.”
My interest in outside surfaces continued after my move to the country (well, upper Westchester, if that can be considered country) to a big, old house, originally built in 1734. The main house had two supporting wings positioned so that they created a large patio area in back that was covered with gravel. Gravel? I couldn’t wait to correct that situation.
With no small amount of toil, I lowered the level of that gravel and dumped a couple of loads of sand on top of it and then had brick delivered, which featured “antique” surfacing.
My idea for using brick for an outdoor surface originated in Colonial Williamsburg, where I went to college at William & Mary, and where all sidewalks were surfaced in brick. In picking a pattern for the brick, I was not about to choose something complicated like herringbone, but simply a linear pattern, with each bridge aligning with the middle of a brick next to it. It was a big social space that presented ample accommodation for an outdoor wrought iron and glass dining set and several accompanying side chairs. It was perfect outdoor space.
Today I live in Trump Park, a condo building where I have no options in choosing outdoor surfaces, but fortunately I like those that have been chosen for me.
Bill Primavera is a residential and commercial realtor associated with William Raveis Realty, as well as a publicist and journalist writing regularly as The Home Guru. For questions about home maintenance or to buy or sell a home, he can be e-mailed at williamjprimavera@gmail.com or called directly at 914-522-2076.
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