Outdoor Living in White Plains, NY
In White Plains, New York, Backyard Paradiso designs and builds the outdoor side of the city’s single-family neighborhoods: pergolas and decks, paver terraces, outdoor kitchens, turf, and lighting for houses in Gedney Farms, the Highlands, Battle Hill, Rosedale, and the streets south of Bryant Avenue.
White Plains is part of the Westchester & Rockland market on the Markets We Serve roster, and it is the county seat. It was settled in 1683, became a village in 1866, and became a city in 1916. Broadway, once the Village Street, still runs through the center. Battle Hill and Dusenbury Hill mark the ground of the Revolutionary War battle that carries the city’s name.
Why Backyard Paradiso in White Plains
The Backyard Paradiso team is a full-service White Plains contractor. Design and installation run under one team, which keeps footings, drainage, and finished surfaces in the right order. Permit drawings for the city’s Department of Building are prepared as part of the job. Site assessments scheduled by appointment.
Services in White Plains
The city’s detached houses sit in long-established neighborhoods, so most work here adds to or replaces what a yard already has:
- Outdoor structures: pergolas, decks, awnings and screens, glass railings, and fences.
- Turf, hardscape, and landscape: rebuilt terraces, walks, and lawns.
- Outdoor entertaining: a kitchen, fireplace, or umbrella on the terrace.
- Seasonal and specialty: permanent and holiday lighting.
- Pools and recreation.
What White Plains' conditions mean for a project
White Plains shares the southern county’s ground: glacial soils that often meet rock before a footing reaches the frost line, subsoils that hold water through late winter, and cold seasons of repeated freezing and thawing. Deck piers, pergola posts, and fence footings go to full depth through whatever the site turns up. Paver bases get drainage sized for water that lingers in the subsoil into spring. The aluminum in each structure is sized to the design values for the address. County-wide code specifics are on the Westchester & Rockland market page.
The local framework is compact because White Plains is one city:
- Permits: the City’s Department of Building.
- Water: the city itself. The Department of Public Works’ Bureau of Water & Wastewater runs distribution across White Plains and issues the city’s own outdoor-water-use restrictions when conditions call for them.
- Contractor licensing: the Westchester County Department of Consumer Protection.
Exterior review works differently here than in some neighboring municipalities. Scarsdale has a Board of Architectural Review and North Castle an Architectural Review Board, while the White Plains Design Review Board handles commercial projects and signs. The city’s Historic Preservation Commission reviews changes to designated landmarks. Here those are individual properties, such as the Jacob Purdy House and Soundview Manor, rather than whole residential districts. FEMA flood mapping touches some properties, with Public Works handling local floodplain administration. Which of these apply to a given house gets sorted out at the first visit.
The house-and-yard side of the city
White Plains holds 27,561 housing units, and most of them are in multi-unit buildings. 10,247 sit in buildings of fifty or more units, compared with 7,655 detached single-family houses (2024 ACS five-year estimates, B25024). The city’s median construction year is 1961 (B25035). Its largest single building era is 1939 or earlier, at 8,224 units, with the 1950s and 1960s close behind (B25034). On the same median, neighboring Scarsdale runs older at 1943 and North Castle newer at 1971.
The city’s comprehensive plan places the detached-house neighborhoods north and west of downtown, with the largest continuous stretch south of Bryant Avenue. North of Bryant, two- and three-family houses and townhouses make the transition toward the center. Growth since 2000 went into downtown apartment buildings, not new subdivisions, so the house-and-yard neighborhoods are mature ones. Projects here rebuild and extend: a deck replacing one that has run its course, a terrace for a house that never had one, lighting and screening for a yard that backs onto a neighbor.
Neighborhoods, and the neighbors that share the name
The city’s neighborhood-association map names more than two dozen residential areas. Among them:
- Gedney Farms, Gedney Park, Gedney Manor, Gedney Circle, and Gedney Meadows
- Rosedale, Idle Forest, Soundview, Haviland Manor, Hillair Circle, Old Mamaroneck Road, and Oak Ridge
- Battle Hill, Fisher Hill, the Highlands, Prospect Park, Carhart, Eastview, and Woodcrest
- Ferris Avenue, Fulton Street, North Broadway, North Street, Colonial Corners, Rocky Dell, Reynal Park, and Holbrooke
- the Saxon Woods neighborhood, which is separate from Saxon Woods County Park in Scarsdale and Mamaroneck
Named developments include the Brook Hills conservation development and Gedney Commons, north of Ridgeway.
Several neighbors carry White Plains names without being part of the city:
- North White Plains is a hamlet in the Town of North Castle.
- West Harrison and Silver Lake belong to Harrison.
- Fairview, Fulton Park, and Hartsdale are in Greenburgh.
- Scarsdale is its own village.
Each answers to its own town or village government, so the team establishes the municipality before anything is drawn.
Silver Lake, the greenway, and the Bronx River
Southern White Plains has a walking spine in the Jack Harrington Greenway, a linear park on a former rail line that starts at Bryant Avenue, with entrances at Gedney Way and Ridgeway. Bryant-Mamaroneck Park, at the corner of those two avenues, and the Ridgeway Nature Trail add wooded paths nearby. At the Harrison line, Liberty Park opens onto Silver Lake for walking, picnics, and fishing, beside the county’s Silver Lake Preserve, which the city shares with Harrison.
Downtown, the Bronx River Reservation Pathway carries walkers and cyclists through the city. Tibbits Park on North Broadway holds the civic monuments, and Renaissance Plaza hosts events. Gardella and Kittrell parks run the city’s outdoor pools. The outdoor calendar leans civic:
- the city’s September 11 remembrance at the Liberty Park memorial
- Truck Day at the Gedney Recycling Center each September
- a fall Columbus Day commemoration at Tibbits Park, organized by a local Sons of Italy lodge
Yards that border the greenway or the lake get sightlines, screening, and lighting planned around that neighbor.
Beginning a White Plains project
A project begins with an on-site visit. The visit:
- confirms the address sits inside the city, not in a neighboring town that shares the White Plains mailing name
- checks whether a landmark designation or flood mapping applies
- covers the house and yard as they are, what the owner wants to use the space for, and the order the work should happen in
A design concept and project scope follow, written for that property.
Backyard Paradiso — the White Plains team
Phone: (914) 436-3690
Hours: By appointment
Email: [email protected]
Serving: White Plains neighborhoods including Gedney Farms, the Highlands, Battle Hill, Rosedale, Fisher Hill, Soundview, Idle Forest, and Haviland Manor