Island Hopping at Home

Summer 2025

Island Hopping at Home

June 4, 2025

Words by Andrea Darr | Photos by Christine Caso

Tropical daydreams inspire a resort-style approach to an Overland Park property.

andscape architecture comes easily to Todd Higgins, owner of Backyard by Design. He can look at a site and know how he wants to design the space for his clients.

“I love doing custom residential projects; I can usually see the vision,” he says.

But when it came to designing his own backyard, the vision got cloudy.

“Designing for your own house is hard,” he notes. “Being an architect, I was overdesigning it.”

He and his wife purchased their 35-year-old Overland Park home a few years ago and renovated the interiors first—a project his wife, Laura, led. Phase II would be where the landscape architect could let his skills shine.

“We wanted to live in the house first to see how we would use it,” he notes.

During that time, Higgins imagined the pool design would be freeform because of their two-acre lot’s natural setting. It turns out that he tried to put a round peg in a square hole, so to speak. Higgins drew six or seven sets of plans—“and none of them turned out even close to this,” he says.

One night, after sitting by the fire pit at a friend’s house, the answer hit him—at 3 a.m.

“I sketched it out by my bedside,” he recalls. That lucid intuition became the visionary plan that tied everything together, aligning the family’s vacation inspiration and love of sports while accommodating the property’s constraints.

The pool borders the cabana to the north then wraps around the sunken fire pit, allowing for entertaining in and out of the covered space and for people who wish to stay in the pool to still be part of the conversation.

The homeowners have two loves: The Virgin Islands with all the open-air living surrounded by water and their love for sports. The space design had to be on a large scale to fit with the spacious 2+ acre land the home sits on yet still provide the seclusion of a private resort.

Power screens can be lowered to enclose the entire cabana area with the push of a remote control button. Custom furnishings with tropical color accents keep the entire space light and airy.

Sections of the ceiling are dropped and accented in a white oak herringbone pattern with RGB LED lighting around the top that can be changed to fit the sports team of the night.

The pool is capped off at the south end with the glorious sound of a rain curtain that can be heard from the bocce ball court. As a sports-minded family, the need to keep up with their favorite teams outdoors was important. A large full-sun, all-weather TV sits to the east side of the pool for watching games, as well as one inside the cabana.

Sculptural elements, like the birds-nest chandeliers and the driftwood stand, enhance the visual appeal of the covered space—an extension of the living room.

The hot tub is also positioned so that users are part of the group either in the kitchen or living room areas and, of course, it has a view of the game!

The sunken fire pit was a key design element of the project, seamlessly connecting to the pool and cabana.

The open-air cabana features two privacy walls, one to the north for the outdoor kitchen and one that extends off the main wall of the house for privacy to the south. Additional landscape was used as the remainder of the privacy because of the restrictions due to where the septic and lateral field were located.

Every property is unique and provides some sort of restriction or guideline. In this case, Higgins had to account for a septic system and its lateral lines, which comprised much of the north side of the yard. That unmoveable fact led him to design the project in a linear fashion, with three access points from the house and every element easily accessible.

Another sticking point Higgins wanted to get just right was the cabana. The best design stemmed from this covered outdoor space attached directly to the living room, allowing family and friends to flow outside no matter the weather. Just as important, the cabana provides a visual block of the neighbor’s house and pool, offering privacy.

“We can walk out there rain or shine; grill out there rain or shine,” Higgins says.

The hot tub is also easily accessible from the house and positioned right next to the pool’s entry steps. This section of the pool is lap style: narrow and long. It’s shallow for standing and conversing with those seated in Adirondack chairs on a submerged ledge. The other side hugs a sunken lounge with a central gas fire feature. This area is not only a focal point of the project, it’s the most inspired piece—it makes Higgins feel transported back to one of his favorite places in the world: the Virgin Islands.

“When you’re not in the water, you’re surrounded by it,” he explains.

The lap lane then opens up into a second, larger rectangle-shaped pool with a prominent backdrop that incorporates an outdoor TV, three waterfalls and two copper fire bowls. Everyone loves to float there at night watching Royals games.

A dramatic rain screen, which supplies both visual and auditory stimulus, gently circulates water. It is high enough that kids wouldn’t be enticed to jump off it and so that bocce ball players on the field behind it can still see through to the TV.

“All the sight lines were completely thought out,” Higgins says.

As was the intentional floor plan and the way every area aids connections and views.

“Elevations are key; different heights create visual impact,” he says. “The pool has to be one level; the surroundings don’t.”

Now into their third season of use, the Higginses have hosted parties of up to 60 people. He’s also happy just grilling out solo or falling asleep on the couch to No Shoes Radio, protected from bugs by the cabana’s automated screens.

The one-of-a-kind design exemplifies the work his company does—the turnkey process from design to the finish details.

“We try not to ever repeat what we’ve done on other projects,” he says. “This is not cookie-cutter.”

The difference is that he gets to enjoy the refreshing sense of place for himself that he creates for his clients.

“We are out here every night from mid-April through November,” he says with a smile.

Landscape Architect: Backyard by Design, @backyardbydesignkc

Pool Contractor: Swim Things, @swimthingsinc

Resources:

Landscape Architect: Backyard by Design Pool Builder: Swim Things Solid Surface Countertops: Stone Surface Framing and Trim Work: Heos