Andrea Rogge pictures
Enter Ayla’s backyard through the orange-framed door set against a breeze-block white wall, and your first question will certainly be, “Where am I?” Among the circular concrete floors, lightly planted yucca, prickly pear cactus, Cyntinus shrubs, and thyme, Ayla responds enthusiastically, “Welcome to Paaaaaaalm springs, my dear!”
She’s not kidding. A passionate admirer of the California desert city that became a mecca for mid-century architecture and design, Ayla says she “loved the mid-century before it was cool.” While she and her partner, Heidi, often travel to Palm Springs and consider buying a home there, they love their jobs, family, and friends and live here. So, Ayla says, “I’m going to bring Palm Springs to Minnesota.”
I brought it to Bloomington, to be exact, where the perfect mid-century-style home, complete with a sunken living room and outdoor pool, awaited a total makeover. The yard was disastrous, it was a huge deck that covered most of the yard, and “the trees came straight into the house—lots of them,” Ayla recalls. “There was no sunshine in the backyard.” Fortunately, she met Steve Modrow, a landscape architect and owner of biota Landscapes, who originally hails from Southern California.
“He owns it,” Ayla says of her “wild vision,” which involved turning the property into a desert oasis. “Over the course of eight years, we have teamed up to turn it into my dream resort. Honestly, I am much better than what I see in Palm Springs.”
From “the desert,” where guests are transported to an entirely new biome they don’t expect, Modrow says, a path runs through a wall of Modrian-influenced acrylic panels behind the hot tub. “The nearby herb horsetail has a mid-century feel and is used on modern plantations,” Modrow explains. In addition, the hot tub is surrounded by artificial turf so that the owners can use it all year round.
Circular floors and a bright orange door welcome family and friends to this mid-century-style getaway.
The cheery yellow wall along the house serves not only as a bright pop of fun color but also as a backdrop for decorative items and photo shoots. Geometric décor and square floors surround the nearby dining area.
Around the pool, Modrow and his team planted low-growing sumac and cut and pruned trees to create what he calls a “vertical sculpted effect.” Thin, curved water jets and subtle lighting create sound and movement into the evening.
Poolside, interlocking shuffleboard tiles are set on a molded concrete cushion to create a level playing area. At one end, the acrylic plate serves as a dry-erase scoreboard. “I’ve been obsessed with shuffleboard since I was a kid,” Ayla says. “We were visiting Florida and playing all the time.”
The backyard also includes an updated gazebo fondly known as the “Pink Flamingo Bar”. Nearby, a yellow-painted wall provides a lively backdrop as the couple display cacti and favorite decorative items from their Palm Springs adventures. In the dining area, the couple enjoys family and friends every Sunday with great food, lounge music, pool time and more. “We start early, and you stay all night,” says Ayla, who, along with Heidi, hosts huge parties of up to 50 people. “We definitely have fun in our yard. We love creating unique spaces that bring people together so happily.”
Vibrant yellow cushions and benches extend throughout the patio, including around the fire pit, which is surrounded by pea gravel. “The pea gravel is soft and smooth,” Modrow explains. “You can get out of the pool or hot tub and walk barefoot to the fire without the need for slippers.” A hand-troweled concrete pad connects the fire pit area to the back of the glass-walled house. Throughout the property, rocks from selected locally sourced Ayla add to the landscape’s modern desert feel.
“Since we both work so hard and spend so much time on the road, there is no better feeling than coming home to our own oasis,” Ayla says. “There isn’t enough time to relax, so we wanted to create a ‘resort’ feeling at home.”
And yes, Modrow assures, homeowners can indeed create a desert oasis in the Midwest. “Not only did we give our backyard a luxurious look with a design rooted in Palm Springs landscaping traditions of a bygone era, but we also created a Minnesota desert garden as part of the landscape,” he says.
Ayla says she always asks: Are you done yet? My answer is, ‘Impossible! “It is not included in my vocabulary with this arena,” she says. “Every year we seem to add ‘one more thing’ to make it more fun. There’s nothing better than getting up for this every morning.”
