Over the past two years there has been a growing emphasis on maximizing outdoor living spaces. More and more, landscape contractors are being called to develop these spaces and provide the residential customer with their own private backyard oasis.
With this in mind, LC/DBM reached out to two well known LCs who have specialized in building these custom residential projects and asked them to tell their story . . .
Bryon Meyer started Land Mechanics in 1984, primarily as a landscape maintenance operation. Over the years, landscape installation overtook the maintenance side. Now his strictly installation operation features 8 employees, utilizing a heavy-duty truck, several pickup trucks, an enclosed trailer, a smaller skid steer (the bucket is at least 60"), a larger skid steer that weighs over 10,000 pounds, and a dump trailer. Meyer was asked about the history of his career and what he sees as the current trends in custom
residential projects.
How did you become a Landscape Contractor?

It was originally the ability to work outside and be my own boss. I like to physically do work and I like being outside, I couldn't see myself sitting behind a desk. I started doing construction and landscaping in 1984 and I became licensed in 1986. When I was going to college, I would take classes at night and during the day I worked for a gentleman up until about 1984. I was close to graduating to be a certified ornamental horticulturist, but I was unsure of the direction it was taking me, so with about $2,500 in student loans I started the company.

 
It looks like most of your work is in residential projects . . .

I would say every year is different, but if you took the average of everything, I bet you that 90-95% is all custom residential. We did a did a big pool renovation at an apartment complex, I think it's been four or five years now, and we did some really cool stuff there that was probably more than half of our income for the year. I think that project was close to about $750,000.

What trends have you seen in custom residential projects?

I'd say the biggest trends right now are that there aren't enough pool builders right now. Everyone wants a pool in their backyard because of Covid. A lot of people want the big outdoor kitchens, so I've built a lot of those over the years. Also, what I call the California Rooms, which are just solid roof structures with big walls of glass coming out of the house, have become very popular, because people love to live outside in California now.
I had a client in Yorba Linda two years ago and he was close to retirement, in fact, I think he retired last year right around Covid. They lived up in the bay area, but they owned this house in Yorba Linda and she stuck a lot of money in her yard and she just loves it. I worked closely with her as we designed the yard, and when we had built it, it turned out beautiful. To me that's the biggest thing and that's really what I'm catering to, is those people who really want to spend the money on an outdoor living area. One of my slogans is "Bring in the warmth of your home outdoors" So that's what we do and what we seek. Those kinds of clients, and the larger projects, that's what we like, that's what we specialize in. I could have probably sold more than 50 pools last year, but that's all they wanted was a pool and spa, and that's not me. I prefer to work under the philosophy of "one stop, let's build whatever you need to get built in the back yard including our kitchen, your outdoor living area, your pool, your spa, outdoor lighting." I'm the whole package that's what I specialize in.
What do you think is driving these trends?

I think a lot of it revolves around a "staycation" mindset. During Covid you couldn't really go anywhere. I have this older couple where they live in a nice home, it was beautiful it was done completely inside, the backyard was never really done right, and we built this outdoor living area with a firepit, we remodeled the pool, we did all the paving, everything you can think of and they just love it. Now they, like most people, want to spend more time outdoors. They don't want to be inside, they want to spend time outside and enjoy their space, whatever that may be. It might be a 20' by 20' space or it might be 10,000 square feet. No matter what size their space is people want to use that space wisely want to get the most out of every square inch of it. Lots are smaller now and everyone's neighbors' wall is five feet from their wall, so we are trying to get as much use out of our area as we possibly can.

Do you do any design and maintenance as well?

I hardly do any design. I have input and I work with a designer and landscape architects, but it depends on the project. For instance, if there is an addition on the house, we've got to get an architect in, or we might go ahead and get the engineering done, but the designer might have an idea about the landscaping.
I originally started the business with maintenance because that was my main income, but years ago, I sold that portion and then we started it up again around 2008 when things started slowing down. We started doing maintenance for a while until last year, and then I couldn't justify it, my guys were needed on the job sites, so we stopped doing maintenance, but through the years I've taken care of huge apartment complexes and things like that where we had several acres of property.

What do you enjoy about contracting?

Some of these projects are pretty intense.The one I'm working on now with the outdoor living room and the fireplaces will likely end up around $400,000-$500,000 depending on what extra additions the homeowner wants to make on the house; every job is different. Every job has a pretty good challenge, and I like challenging jobs, I like jobs that test me in my field.
In my current project, the engineer designed it, and he wanted 18" round holes that are seven feet deep. Well, there's no access in the yard for us to get there. Plus, you have all your pool equipment and the pool itself to deal with, so they had to be hand dug. As a result, those footings ended up being 3' by 3' instead of the 18" round holes. The steel beams that we had to set up to carry the load of the perimeter beam and the floor joints were 5?,? 1/2 " square tubing with buckets on top that went six feet into the ground and weighed over 500 pounds. To make this happen, I got to use a piece of equipment I never used before or even new existed. It's called a spider crane. It starts two feet wide and it goes through a small 2' gate opening and then it spreads out to about five or six feet wide, and I used it to lift the 500-pound steel beams in the hole.