Children soar on a yellow-domed swing set called the “Atom Splitter,” their shrieks mingling with those of the seagulls. A merry-go-round shaped like a giant ladybug spins in a sandy enclosure near “Tarzan’s Place,” a jungle-like structure with 20-foot ropes.
Is this a new theme park? No, it’s 11-year-old Wyatt Koch’s backyard.
“I wanted to attract other kids so my son could learn to socialize,” says Bill Koch, the former America’s Cup skipper and owner of a Florida energy business, who spent roughly $250,000 on the attractions when Wyatt was 2. “But adults are using it, too.”
Welcome to the new American backyard. Though few are as elaborate as the Koch family’s, the space surrounding many U.S. homes is undergoing a transformation.
Electric-powered trains, miniature Ferris wheels and commercial-quality play equipment previously found only in schools and parks are appearing on suburban lawns across the country. And it’s not just kids’ stuff.
Grown-ups are indulging their own fantasies with backyard versions of Baby Boomer exercise fads, such as bungee-jump trampoline attachments and climbing walls.
Certainly, these are extravagant playthings, but some versions of commercial playground sets and extreme-sports toys start as low as $1,000–about the price of a redwood swing set.
It’s all part of a new shift in focus to the outdoors: Now that many homeowners have finished lavishing time and attention on their interiors, the backyard has become the next frontier.
“It’s like they’re building an outdoor living room with the same attention to detail as they have for the inside of their house,” says Bruce Butterfield, research director for the National Gardening Association.
In recent years, overall spending on the backyard has risen rapidly. In 1997, a record 11.4 million U.S. households bought outdoor furniture, according to the National Gardening Association.
Homeowners spent $26.6 billion on gardening supplies, landscaping tools, and other materials for backyard improvements last year, up from $22.8 billion in 1992, the gardening association says.
The backyard-toys business is part of the boom. Even the highest-end manufacturers are seeing the change: Denver-based Kiddie Rides USA fills roughly 20 orders a year for home carousels, a tenfold increase from 1995, says spokesman Brian Carasik.
“This backyard amusement-park stuff has only developed in the past few years,” says Randy Koldenhoven, co-owner of Carim Builders Inc. of Chicago, a general contractor who has installed amusement park rides.
Martin Coleman, president of Ascent Products Inc., which sells an interactive climbing wall, reports that the Bozeman, Mont., company has been getting dozens of inquiries a month from people who want it for their backyards.
“We never used to have any calls from individuals,” says Coleman.
A former Wall Street trader and climbing-gym enthusiast, he now practices on the eleven-and-a-half-foot-high wall, called “the Rock,” with his 11-year-old and 13-year-old daughters.
The machine, which comes in $12,900 and $8,500 models, looks like a vertical treadmill with handholds, and can be programmed to replicate the ascents of popular mountains like Yosemite’s El Capitan.
In some neighborhoods, the who-has-the-best-swing-set contest is turning grassy lawns into mega-playgrounds.
Ivette and Chuck Esserman of Orinda, Calif., spent about $12,000 on a state-of-the-art “play components” system of multicolored tunnels, swings and platforms and a spiral tube slide.
The entire contraption, ordered from GameTime, Fort Payne, Ala., sprawls across 40 feet. The Essermans live up the street from a neighborhood park with a similar structure, but “everybody calls and asks where we got it,” Mrs. Esserman says.
Steven Petersen, owner of a steel-fabricating company in Ogden, Utah, started creating a virtual sports complex in his backyard four years ago.
So far, he has spent $160,000 to install a full-court basketball court, a 15-foot-long trampoline and a big, commercial-playground-size steel swing set.
Still, Petersen is looking to expand. He and his seven kids have just gotten into rock-climbing, and “we want to be able to do it at home,” Petersen says. He recently went shopping for an outdoor climbing wall, and has decided to buy the “ClimbnDangle” by Rebound Action Sports Inc., Smithfield, Utah, a 24-foot tower with three rock-like surfaces that retails for $24,000.
Even people with no children at home are buying big-ticket backyard toys, in some cases creating miniature amusement parks out of second-hand rides.
At Frank Savino’s summer home on New York’s Long Island, young guests can hop on his miniature train, ride one of the 20 jumping horses on his carousel or climb aboard his personal, 18-foot-high Ferris wheel. And, if he can talk his wife into letting him set it up, this summer he’ll also offer rides on his new five-car kiddie roller coaster.
The roughly $32,000 he spent on his backyard “isn’t to me a whole lot of money,” says Savino, who owns Allegro Carting Corp., a New Jersey waste-hauling company. “People spend that on a car.”
In fact, unlike a car, permanent backyard additions can be considered “capital improvements” for purposes of reducing capital-gains taxes on the sale of a house, accountants say.
Savino, whose children are grown, often jumps on his backyard rides himself, entertaining neighborhood visitors.
“He’s with the kids all day, showing them these things,” says his niece, Nancy Ann Casella. Her children love going to his house, and recounting tales of the rides to their friends. The one drawback, says her 12-year-old daughter, Nicole, is that “they don’t believe me.”
Of course, all this stuff comes with the risk of broken bones and lawsuits. Savino says he talked to his attorney before allowing neighbors on the rides, and was assured that his homeowners’ insurance policy would cover any accidents, provided he didn’t use the rides for commercial purposes.
“God forbid, if someone slips and falls, I’m covered,” Savino says.
Judi Anderson, whose Logan, Utah, backyard features a $12,000 GameTime play structure with a rainbow-colored tube slide, a 12-foot, cranberry-colored wavy slide, raised platforms and a swing set, says she initially didn’t worry about being held responsible for injuries because parents were always supervising the kids and even using the rides themselves.
“There are 250-pound men going down these slides,” Mrs. Anderson says. “We put a hose at the top of the wavy slide and zoom down it like 100 miles an hour. So far, there haven’t been any problems.”
But about six months ago, she says, “it kind of scared me” when a neighbor brought up the subject of liability.
Since then, Mrs. Anderson says, three couples have given her notes promising not to hold her family liable for any accidents. Still, Mrs. Anderson worries, “would that hold up in court?”
Koch, the owner of the extravagant Oyster Harbors playground, says he requires that adults be present.
In the summer, when his son’s friends are invited to two weeks at “Wyatt’s Sports Camp,” parents are asked to sign permission slips before dropping them off on the property (technically located not in the backyard, since the house is on the beach, but in a private lot owned by Koch across from the front of his house).
So far, the most serious accident involved a neighborhood mom who fell off the “Atom Splitter” and broke her arm.
But in fact, the Koch yard is pretty much the envy of the neighborhood. Lisa Giovannone, who lives just outside Koch’s gated community in the summer-resort town of Osterville, took 11-year-old Anthony and 10-year-old Mia to play in their friend Wyatt’s yard last summer.
“When I picked my kids up,” Giovannone recalls, “they asked, `When can we get one?”‘
