Fire Pits and Outdoor Fireplaces for Luxury Homes: A Fall Guide

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By early October most terraces have been used as daytime rooms all summer. Then a cool night comes along, dinner finishes, and people would happily stay outside a bit longer if there were somewhere warm to sit.

A fire feature is what makes that possible. With the right fuel, a sensible spot, and chairs people actually want to sink into, a terrace stays in use until Thanksgiving, and sometimes past it. With the wrong ones you end up with a rusting bowl on the lawn that nobody bothers to light.

Our piece on the wider shift outdoors, Beyond the Patio: Designing an Outdoor Living Space for the Fall Season, looked at furniture, shelter and heat in general. Here we're only talking about fire.

Why fire anchors the fall terrace

In the American Society of Landscape Architects' 2018 Residential Landscape Architecture Trends Survey, fire pits and fireplaces ranked first among outdoor design elements, ahead of lighting and seating/dining areas. They'd held the top spot in the 2017 survey, too.

We'd have guessed as much. A fire gives an outdoor room a center, and people tend to stay put once it's lit.

Fire pit, fire table, or outdoor fireplace

Which one suits you depends mostly on where people sit and what you want them looking at.

An outdoor fireplace is closer to architecture than furniture. It gives you a focal wall that can also screen a neighbor's view, and it throws heat one way, toward one seating group. It belongs on a courtyard or a terrace attached to the house. Under a covered loggia, only if the unit is rated for it and your local code signs off.

A fire pit works the other way around. Heat and light go in every direction, so people sit all the way around it. That suits a lawn or a garden room, anywhere a masonry wall would block the view you built the terrace for.

A fire table is the most sociable of the three, because the flame sits in the middle of a surface where people can set down a glass. Most come in coffee-table and dining heights, so match it to the chairs you already have. For a lot of homes it's the right first move, since nobody has to pour concrete.

So if the terrace needs a wall, we'd build a fireplace, and if it needs a center, we'd go with a pit or a table.

Gas, propane, or wood

For most luxury homes we'd choose natural gas. It lights with a switch, leaves no smoke in the cushions and no ash to haul, and turns down to a low glow when the conversation slows. You'll need a licensed plumber to run the line, and the time to do that is while the hardscape is already open, since trenching through finished pavers in November costs more and makes a mess of the garden.

Propane gives you the same clean flame without a permanent line, as long as the tank is out of sight. Most fire tables have room for a standard 20-pound cylinder inside the base, and that's the kind we'd buy, because a tank parked beside the sofa makes a good terrace look like a campsite.

Wood has the crackle and the smell, and plenty of people won't give that up. The trouble is smoke, which follows the wind into your guests' eyes and over the fence to the neighbors. Many towns adopt some version of the International Fire Code, which keeps recreational wood fires 25 feet from any structure or combustible material. Call the fire marshal's office before you design around one. If you want both, put gas by the house and the wood pit out in the garden.

Placement, seating, and wind

Look up clearances first. The manual for any gas unit gives minimum distances to walls, overhangs and tree branches, and local rules (town, county, HOA) sometimes ask for more. We'd put those numbers on the site plan before anyone picks out stone.

Before committing to a spot, pay attention to which way the wind blows over a week or so of evenings. If smoke keeps drifting back through the French doors, the fire won't get used much. On an exposed site gas flames gutter and lean sideways, and a glass wind guard is worth adding to the budget.

It also helps if the fire is visible from the family room, since even on nights nobody goes out, it gives the view something to land on.

Dining chairs arranged in a ring around the fire look stiff and feel worse. Low, deep lounge chairs pulled close enough for easy conversation work much better. Give every one or two seats a side table, and keep a basket of wool throws within reach so nobody has to ask.

Light beyond the flame

The fire should be the brightest thing on the terrace, but it shouldn't be the only light out there.

A few low path lights with warm bulbs are enough to keep the steps visible. Floodlights make the whole terrace look like a parking lot. If dinner is at a table some distance from the fire, a patio heater will keep that end of the party warm. Check its listed overhead clearance before you park it under an umbrella or a pergola.

Care through the season

Most fire features that look tired by December simply weren't looked after in October.

Put the cover on after every use. A fitted cover keeps rain out of the burner pan and keeps leaves and spider webs out of the burner ports, a common reason a gas flame comes up patchy. Rinse and top up the fire glass or lava rock so the flame reads clean. Use only media sold for fire features, since ordinary river rock can trap moisture and crack or even burst when it heats up.

Have a technician check connections and burners each fall, and never light a unit with a cracked hose.

Some owners run their fire features all winter and some shut them down after Thanksgiving. Either works, as long as a unit that's shut down is actually covered and turned off at the valve.

Before the first cool evening

• Gas or propane connections inspected.
• Manufacturer and local clearances confirmed.
• Lounge seating pulled in, with side tables.
• Throws in a basket by the fire, not in a closet two rooms away.
• Path lights checked, with warm bulbs aimed low.

If you're listing, photograph the terrace at blue hour with the fire lit and the lounge set. Buyers touring luxury homes in fall are picturing their evenings, and a lit fire makes the outdoor square footage read as living space instead of lawn.

After the fire burns down

Fall hosting outdoors picks up where The Art of Autumn Entertaining: Creating a Home Designed for Memorable Gatherings left off. If friends stay over after the last log, their room should be ready before they are, which is what Guest Suites in Luxury Homes: What Buyers Want Now is about.

And if you're adding a gas line this year, book the plumber and mason now, before the first cold weekend sends everyone else to the phone.