Millions of viewers know Paul Lafrance as the guy who transformed backyards on HGTV. But “deck designer” has always been far too small a box for him. Founder and lead designer of Paul Lafrance Design, Lafrance has worked in the field since 1997, with work ranging from backyard retreats and commercial outdoor spaces to custom homes and interior transformations. His television career—including Decked Out, Disaster Decks, and Deck Wars—put his unconventional approach to outdoor living in front of audiences across North America. It also had an unintended consequence: People began associating Lafrance almost exclusively with decks.
“Ironically, I always was,” Lafrance says when asked about becoming an interior designer. “I did the interiors as much as I did exteriors, but the TV shows kind of pushed the decking to the forefront.” Interior design is part of what explains his approach to outdoor living in the first place. Long before indoor-outdoor living became an industry catchphrase, Lafrance was questioning why designers needed such a firm boundary between the two.
“Why is there a line between these two things?” Lafrance asks. Inside a home, designers use flooring, ceilings, lighting, furniture, texture, scale, and circulation to influence how people experience a room. Lafrance carries that thinking straight through the back door. For him, the exchange works in both directions. Indoors, nature can bring a sense of calm and connection. Outdoors, the comfort, intimacy, and spatial cues associated with interior rooms can make an open landscape feel like a place where we belong. Consider something as simple as an overhead structure. Lafrance says you will rarely see one of his outdoor living designs without some kind of aerial element, even if it is simply four posts and connecting beams. The reason is psychological as much as architectural.
The structure frames the sky and gives definition to the space. Suddenly, an undefined outdoor area feels like a room. Lighting can be incorporated. Curtains can be hung. But even without those additions, the way someone experiences the space has changed. Lighting receives similar attention. Lafrance points to restaurants as an example: A beautifully designed restaurant can still feel wrong if the lighting doesn’t work. Outdoor spaces are no different. Thoughtful lighting transforms the same space from a Saturday afternoon gathering place into an entirely different environment on a Wednesday evening.
These are principles interior designers understand instinctively: Ceilings define space. Lighting creates atmosphere. Materials create warmth. Circulation influences behavior. Lafrance refuses to stop applying those principles when he reaches the back door.
The range of Lafrance's work also demonstrates something important: Great outdoor living isn't defined by square footage. The projects accompanying this story span dramatically different scales, from one of the smallest outdoor living spaces Lafrance has designed to a sprawling wellness estate. Yet the philosophy connecting them is remarkably consistent. Bigger isn't automatically better. A massive patio without purpose, Lafrance jokes, can feel more like a “parking lot” than somewhere anyone actually wants to spend time. Instead, he believes in putting resources where they change the experience. “Invest in rest,” Lafrance says.
For Lafrance, outdoor living isn't merely discretionary spending on a more attractive backyard. It can be an investment in creating a place to recover from lives that have become increasingly fast, connected, and demanding. That purpose doesn't require an estate. A small outdoor space can provide the same sense of escape when it has been designed around the person using it. Conversely, a large property still needs intimacy, intention, and places that make people want to stop rather than simply move through them. Whether the project occupies a compact footprint or stretches across a wellness estate, Lafrance is ultimately asking the same question: How should this place make someone feel?
Figuring out how a space should feel requires learning more about a client than their preferred materials, colors, or inspiration images. Lafrance describes himself as something of a “design psychologist.” His conversations can include questions that would seem unusual on a conventional design questionnaire: What did you want to be when you grew up? What are your dreams? What memories matter to you? The answers can lead directly to physical design decisions. He recalls discovering that one client's late father had a favorite place in the backyard where he would sit and watch people pass. Conversations shared there had become an important memory for the client.
Suddenly, creating a place to sit wasn't simply a matter of specifying furniture or determining its location. Design had an opportunity to carry a story forward. It is also one reason Lafrance has little interest in chasing trends. “I would rather create things that are timeless,” Lafrance says. People provide a richer source of inspiration than whatever material, color, or feature happens to be dominating social media that year. There is a practical side to his creativity as well. Lafrance describes his artistic personality as being balanced by a “frugal Scotsman” determined not to waste a client's money. Creativity for its own sake can quickly become an exercise in a designer's ego. Creativity working within a client's budget, lifestyle, and emotional needs has a purpose.
Perhaps Lafrance's most relevant lesson for today's outdoor living industry isn't a particular material, construction technique or signature aesthetic. It is the value of looking beyond the boundaries of our own disciplines. Landscape design, architecture, construction, horticulture, and interior design are still frequently treated as separate worlds. Lafrance's career offers an argument for what can happen when those lines become less important than the experience being created.
An outdoor living designer can learn from interior design. An interior designer can learn from nature. Contractors can consider emotion alongside construction. Designers can balance imagination with buildability and budget. And all of us can ask better questions of the people we're designing for. Because whether Lafrance is working with a small outdoor retreat, an interior space, or an expansive wellness estate, he isn't really designing square footage. He is designing how someone feels when they cross the threshold. “If I can make that threshold feel like you've gone through the wardrobe into Narnia,” Lafrance says, “then that's my contribution.”