Early in the summer Michelle and Dean Millonas knew they had succeeded. It was the day one of their daughters had 15 friends over to swim in their recently installed pool. With the pool filled with his sister’s friends, their son and his friends decided they would head for the pickleball court.
Two and a half years ago, Michelle and Dean had moved to Town & Country from Des Peres to create just such a day. In Des Peres the configuration of their yard and the neighboring adjoining properties didn’t allow them to install a swimming pool. With three teenage children at the time, “We wanted a place the kids wanted to be and wanted to invite their friends,” Michelle explains. “We wanted a place for everyone to create memories. I love that everyone comes here and there is something for them to do.”
The “everyone” didn’t include just the Millonas children. While the plan for their new outdoor space began with a pool, it quickly morphed into an outdoor kitchen for Dean, who loves to grill; an outdoor living room/pool house complete with a woodburning fireplace and large-screen TV for watching sporting events, the pickleball court, an upscale fire pit between the pool and the pickleball court and an expansive, open deck connecting everything with the house. To soften the hardscape, Michelle has transformed the deck and poolside into a ceramic pot paradise filled with lovely foliage and beautiful flowers.
While not necessarily a plus for most buyers, the fact the home they purchased on a 1.2-acre lot had “zero flower beds; not a plant or a shrub anywhere,” according to Michelle, turned into a benefit. It made the entire yard a blank canvas.
With the pool as a first order of business, Michelle and Dean settled on Pool Tron as their contractor of choice. Knowing that the family had more than just a pool in mind, Pool Tron brought in Poynter Landscape Architecture and Construction to address the other outdoor spaces on the family’s wish list.
“We had plans for the whole project before we started,” Michelle explains. “We had design meeting after design meeting. ‘I like this, I don’t like that.’ I would show them pictures I had seen online and then we would meet again. I was really involved in the whole process. I wanted to make sure it was what we wanted.”
“It is not unlike building a house,” says Bob Wilhelm, vice president of sales and design for Poynter. “We try to find out short-term and long-term goals and sometimes a master plan can’t be implemented at once. You have to break it up into pieces to determine the best way to build based on how many people are in a family and how many people will be on hand for larger gatherings.”
You also have to improvise at times. Initially, the plan called for a tennis court rather than a smaller pickleball court. According to Town & Country regulations, however, only 25 percent of any property can be in hardscape, which includes the house, driveways, patios, pools and all that go with them. When Bob and his associates calculated the square footage of the Millonas project, the tennis court put them over the city guidelines, while a pickleball court did not.
The success of the entire project was the result of several different contractors working together, with Poynter acting as a general contractor and coordinating the project. To incorporate the firepit into the landscape, Pool Tron created an infinity edge at one end of the pool, so anyone seated around the firepit had a waterfall view. The pickleball court, created by McConnell & Associates, was sited to be viewed from both the firepit and the pool.
Everyone pitched in on the design of the project. “Our youngest daughter has a detailed eye,” Michelle notes. “She noticed that from our breakfast room picture window, a deck railing would be right in the middle of the view of the yard. She suggested that we drop the deck down or not have a railing at all.” As a result, the finished product features a California-style open deck.
Dean weighed in on the design of the outdoor seating area with a request for a wood-burning fireplace and outdoor TV. He also had an interest in the design of the outdoor kitchen. The plans called for almost everything you would find inside a house, according to Bob from Poynter, including hot and cold running water, a refrigerator and an icemaker. In addition to the grilling area already in the plan, Dean made a last-minute request for a griddle to be added to the design. Accommodating that request, meant reconfiguring some cabinetry, according to Bob.
There were things that looked good on paper but didn’t work as well during the construction. “I looked out and saw four workmen scratching their heads,” Michelle recalls with a laugh. The problem was that the edge of the long kitchen bar counter ran up against a stone retaining wall in the original plan. Reconfiguring the wall to include a tiered flower bed stopped the space from feeling cramped and “in the long run, made everything look better,” she says.
“It’s nice when you can do things on the fly and make changes quickly,” says Bob, who likes to do the drawings for his projects by hand. “It creates a sense that we are all working together on a project,” he believes.
Poynter Landscaping and Michelle also worked hand and hand on selection of the plants that tie everything together. Michelle requested season-long flowering shrubs with hydrangeas being her favorites for their long bloom times. Incorporated into the project are “Ruby Slippers,” with white blossoms that turn crimson as the season progresses, and “Little Quick Fire” which flowers earlier with white blossoms turning pink. To add height, Bob added trellises for climbing hydrangeas. Another long season shrub “Blue Muffin” viburnums sporting white flowers in spring and blue berries in autumn became part of the landscape. Perennials include long-blooming shasta daisies and “May Night” salvia. Tall “Karl Foerster” feather reed grass and shorter “Hamelin” fountain grass add movement and season-long interest.
Bob carefully selected arborvitaes, junipers and boxwoods for the overall size and shapes to add variety and screening throughout the yard. Around the outdoor installation, the boxwoods, in particular, were picked with an eye to the variety’s growth habit and mature size to allow for as little pruning and maintenance as possible.
Michelle takes over personally when it comes to container gardening, planting 55 colorful pots that decorate the deck and pool area. “I like color,” she says, “and I need plants that aren’t going to die if I don’t get a chance to water them for a day.” Through “trial and error” she has come up with some favorites that can take the heat and are not fussy. She also grows herbs such as basil, oregano and spearmint in her containers to add to summer salads and drinks.
• Kimberly Queen ferns, which are far more sun tolerant than other ferns,
• Mandevilla vines for their ability to add height to pots and constant color
• Majesty palms for their height and tropical ambiance
• Diplandenia, a cousin to Mandevilla but clump forming, which she plants at the base of the palms
• Dragon wing begonias, which bloom non-stop throughout the season and can add color to shady areas
• Sun coleus with vividly colored foliage that adds additional color to floral mixes
• Lantana for brilliant colors, heat and drought tolerance and versatility to either mound or trail depending upon the variety
• Hibiscus for its tropical ambiance, brilliant blossoms and heat tolerance
To minimize the work of container gardening she often leaves larger plants in nursery pots, adding bricks to the bottom of the large decorative pots to prevent them from being blown over in storms and cut up pool noodles to bring the nursery pot up to the rim of the decorative container.
