Outdoor Living in Colorado Springs, CO

Backyard Paradiso designs and installs outdoor living projects across Colorado Springs, Colorado – aluminum pergolas, composite decks, paver patios, artificial grass, outdoor kitchens, and lighting – built for the full range of the city’s residential settings: the foothill neighborhoods along the mountain front, the historic streets north of downtown, and the master-planned communities of the north and northeast.

Colorado Springs anchors the Colorado Springs regional market on the Markets We Serve roster. Laid out in 1871 by General William Jackson Palmer on the grassland beneath Pikes Peak, the city now covers more than 200 square miles from the mountain front to the eastern plains, with residential elevations running from roughly 5,700 to 7,400 feet. Few cities hold three settlement patterns this different inside one city limit.

The Backyard Paradiso team is a full-service Colorado Springs contractor. One design, one build: structures, hardscape, turf, and lighting are planned together and installed so the footings, utility runs, and finished surfaces land in the right order the first time. Where a community’s architectural review or the city’s hillside review applies, the submission is prepared and coordinated as part of project scope. Site assessments scheduled by appointment.

Colorado Springs projects draw on every category Backyard Paradiso installs: outdoor structures including pergolas, decks, awnings, screens, railings, and fencing; turf, hardscape, and landscape work; outdoor entertaining features including kitchens, fireplaces, and umbrellas; pools and recreation; and seasonal and specialty installations including permanent and holiday lighting.

Colorado Springs sits above 6,000 feet at the seam between high-plains prairie and the montane foothills, inside the Front Range hail corridor, with roughly 300 days of sun a year and some of the most intense ultraviolet exposure of any residential market in the country. That reality shapes every installation here: footings for pergolas, decks, and fences reach below the regional frost line; aluminum structures are specified to the snow and wind ratings in force, which step up for lots above 7,000 feet; motorized louvered pergolas close to a watertight seal when an afternoon cell builds over the Rampart Range; finishes and fabrics are chosen for altitude sun rather than sea-level ratings; and paver bases are engineered for the freeze-thaw cycling that runs most nights from October through April. The regional engineering thresholds and code specifics are covered on the Colorado Springs market page.

Several of the governing frameworks are specific to the city. Building permits and inspections for Colorado Springs and El Paso County run through one regional authority, the Pikes Peak Regional Building Department, which also licenses contractors directly rather than deferring to a state board. On the west side, the city’s Hillside Overlay and Wildland-Urban Interface overlay add slope, vegetation, and fire-mitigation review before grading or structures are approved, and the city’s geologic hazard ordinance governs work on the steeply dipping bedrock along the mountain front. Colorado Springs Utilities sets the year-round Water-Wise Rules that shape every irrigated landscape in the city – the framework that has made hardscape expansion and synthetic turf the compliant path to a usable yard on many properties. Each is confirmed with the city during project scoping, and current-season water rules are verified with Colorado Springs Utilities directly, since shortage stages change year to year.

The city reads in three bands. West of Interstate 25, the foothill neighborhoods climb the mountain front: the Broadmoor district at the base of Cheyenne Mountain, where the resort opened in 1918 and the estate streets grew up around it; Skyway and Stratton Preserve on the slopes above; Kissing Camels at the gates of Garden of the Gods; and Rockrimmon and Peregrine on the northwest hillsides below Blodgett Peak, built largely from the 1970s through the 1990s. North of downtown, the Old North End holds the city’s oldest residential fabric – mansions and bungalows from roughly 1885 to 1965 on carriage-width streets under century-old trees, listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1982. North and northeast along the Powers and Interquest corridors, the master-planned communities make up the city’s newest geography: Briargate, laid out from the late 1970s across nearly 10,000 acres, and inside and beside it Pine Creek, Cordera, Wolf Ranch, and Flying Horse, built out mostly since the early 2000s.

The project profile follows the housing stock. On the west side the work answers to terrain: terraced lots, decks that hold a city-lights or Pikes Peak view, railings and lighting chosen so the view stays open, structures sited within hillside and fire-mitigation review. In the Old North End the work is retrofit and period-sensitive – a pergola that reads correctly beside a Tudor or Colonial Revival house, a composite deck replacing an aging wood one, lighting that respects the district’s exterior design review. In the master-planned north, projects tend toward complete environments designed as one build – structure, hardscape, turf, and lighting planned together from the start, with the community’s architectural review folded into scope.

The west side and foothills include the Broadmoor, Broadmoor Bluffs, the Broadmoor Resort Community, Stratton Forest and Stratton Preserve, Skyway, Cedar Heights, Kissing Camels and Kissing Camels Estates, Rockrimmon with the Estates at Rockrimmon, Pinon Mesa, Oak Valley Ranch, Tamarron, and Golden Hills, and Peregrine.

The historic core is the Old North End along Wood, Cascade, and Nevada avenues north of Colorado College. The north and northeast run through Briargate and its sub-areas Summerfield, Gatehouse Village, Fairfax, Kettle Creek, Bison Ridge, and North Fork; Pine Creek around its golf course; Cordera; Wolf Ranch; and Flying Horse with the Village of Turin, the Village of Madonie, Lansdowne, and the Flying Horse North acreage sections.

Most of these communities carry documented design standards. The Broadmoor Resort Community, Stratton Preserve, Cedar Heights, Peregrine’s master association, and the associations and metropolitan districts behind Cordera, Wolf Ranch, and Flying Horse run architectural review covering exterior improvements, and the Old North End’s historic district adds city-level exterior design review. Where a community’s review precedes the city’s own approvals, Backyard Paradiso prepares the submission documentation as part of project scope and coordinates the review alongside permitting.

Colorado Springs’ outdoor settings are organized around the mountain front and the creek corridors that cut through it. Pikes Peak, at 14,115 feet, is in view from most of the residential footprint, and Cheyenne Mountain anchors the southwest the way the Peak anchors the whole city. North Cheyenne Cañon Park, 1,200 acres with Helen Hunt Falls, opens from the Broadmoor neighborhoods; Stratton Open Space, 318 acres of trails, buffers Skyway and Stratton Forest; Cheyenne Mountain State Park’s 2,700 acres border Broadmoor Bluffs; Garden of the Gods, deeded to the city in 1909 on the condition that it stay open to the public, sits at the Kissing Camels gates; Ute Valley Park and the Rockrimmon Trail serve the northwest hillsides; and Blodgett Peak Open Space’s 384 acres run from a trailhead inside Peregrine up to Pike National Forest. Monument Creek threads the north side past Flying Horse and Briargate toward Monument Valley Park and the Old North End, and Wolf Lake, 14 acres, is the social center of Wolf Ranch. Interstate 25 divides the foothill neighborhoods from the plains side of the city; Powers Boulevard carries the northeast corridor. Properties along these edges are designed to face them – sight lines, railing choices, and lighting plans that treat the adjacent open space and the mountain horizon as part of the yard.

Every project starts with a site assessment at the property: the lot’s slope and soil conditions, the community’s architectural review or the city’s hillside review where one applies, the applicable permits and water rules as confirmed with the city and Colorado Springs Utilities, the home’s orientation to Pikes Peak and the Front Range, the homeowner’s design priorities, and realistic phasing against timeline. The result is a design concept and project scope based on the actual property, not a formula.

Backyard Paradiso — the Colorado Springs team
Phone: (719) 563-6159
Hours: By appointment
Email: [email protected]
Serving: neighborhoods across Colorado Springs including the Broadmoor, Skyway, Kissing Camels, Rockrimmon, Peregrine, the Old North End, Briargate, Pine Creek, Cordera, Wolf Ranch, and Flying Horse