There’s a particular kind of evening we don’t talk about enough.
The kind where dinner runs long because nobody wants to get up. Where the kids wander back outside after they’ve eaten because something out there is better than anything on a screen. Where your neighbor walks over uninvited — and you’re actually glad they did. Those evenings don’t happen by accident. They happen in the right kind of space.
For the past 25 years, Summit Outdoor Living has been building those spaces across Fort Collins, Windsor, Loveland, Timnath, Greeley, and the communities in between. We’re a small, family-owned hardscape and outdoor living company. This is the first in a series of posts we’re writing not to sell you anything, but to show you what’s possible when the backyard gets the attention it deserves.
What “Outdoor Living” Actually Means in Northern Colorado
The phrase gets used a lot. Outdoor living. Backyard retreat. Al fresco. It can start to feel like marketing language pretty quickly. But here in Northern Colorado, outdoor living has a specific meaning, and our climate demands it be taken seriously.
We get more than 300 days of sunshine a year. Our summers are warm and clear. Our falls are long and golden. And with the right hardscape design, even a Colorado spring evening with the fires lit, and throws pulled out becomes something you’d never trade for a night inside. The families we work with aren’t looking for a patio. They’re looking for a reason to be outside. They want a space that pulls them out the back door after work. That makes hosting feel effortless. That their kids will remember when they’re grown. That’s the goal. Every project.
The Summit Approach: Design-Build, Start to Finish
Summit is a design-build company. Which means we handle everything from the first conversation about your vision to the final stone laid and the last light tested. Our co-founders, Dave and Cara, have led Summit since 1999. Dave brings a background in horticulture and business. Cara’s degree in art history and preservation inform the aesthetic decisions that make our spaces feel different from what you see everywhere else. Together, they’ve built a team of craftsmen who care about the details. When you work with Summit, you’re not handing your project off to a project manager who hands it to a crew. You’re working with the people who will be on your property every day until it’s done. That matters more than most clients realize until they’ve been through the process.
What We Build: A Full-Service Hardscape and Outdoor Living Contractor in Northern Colorado
Our work spans the full range of outdoor living design and hardscape construction. Below is what we offer. More importantly, why each element matters.
Custom Patios and Walkways in Fort Collins and Northern Colorado
A patio is the foundation of every outdoor living space. Get it wrong ie. the wrong material, the wrong grade, the wrong size, and everything built on top of it suffers. We work primarily with concrete pavers, natural stone, and porcelain tile. Each material suits different design aesthetics, and price points. Our patios are designed to scale with your life. The family that starts with a modest dining patio often comes back a few years later for a built in kitchen or a covered pergola. We design with that future in mind from the beginning.
Related services: raised patios, pool decks, concrete paver driveways, permeable paving systems, hardscape renovations.
Pergolas, Shade Structures, and Louvered Roofs
This is where outdoor space becomes outdoor room. A well designed pergola does something a patio alone can’t: it creates definition. It makes a space feel intentional. It says this is somewhere to hang out, not just this is outside on the patio.
We build traditional hand crafted wood pergolas, aluminum pergolas built to outlast the elements, and electric louvered roof systems that let you adjust light and ventilation in real time. For families who want the flexibility to use their outdoor space on a rainy afternoon or under a blazing July sun, louvered roofs have become one of the more popular additions we install.
We also design and install drop down screens. The screens add privacy, reduce bugs, and make a covered space feel genuinely protected without closing it off from the yard. Giving that 3 season room feel to a home.
Outdoor Kitchens and BBQ Installations
There’s a version of the outdoor kitchen that is elaborate and expensive and rarely used. And there’s the version that becomes the center of your outdoor life. The difference isn’t budget. It’s design. An outdoor kitchen should be positioned, sized, and equipped for the way your family actually cooks and gathers, not for a feature list. We help clients think through workflow, appliance selection, counter materials that survive Colorado winters, and layouts that integrate naturally with the rest of the outdoor space. Done right, an outdoor kitchen means you stop going inside. Dinner happens outside. Breakfast on the weekend happens outside (bacon smells outside instead). And anyone who walks in the back gate ends up gravitating toward it.
Fire Pits and Fire Features
A fire pit extends your outdoor season. In Northern Colorado, that’s not a small thing. From late September through May, a fire feature can be the difference between a space that gets used and a space that sits empty. We design and install gas fire pits, wood burning fire pits, and integrated fire elements like fireplaces. There’s also something that’s harder to quantify: a fire pulls people together. Conversations happen around a fire that don’t happen anywhere else. If you have ever gone camping or had a bonfire on the beach, you get it.
Outdoor Porcelain Tile and Premium Paving
For clients drawn to a more contemporary or refined aesthetic, outdoor grade porcelain tile has become one of our most exciting material options. Modern large format porcelain is durable, frost-resistant, and available in surfaces that rival the most beautiful interior floors. Bringing the inside out. Used on a patio, a pool deck or as an overlay on existing concrete, high-quality porcelain transforms a space into something that feels like a true extension of the home.
Low Voltage LED Landscape Lighting
Lighting is the final layer of any outdoor living space, and often the most overlooked. A space that looks beautiful in the afternoon can feel flat at night without the right lighting design. Well placed low voltage LED landscape lighting changes that entirely. It extends the usable hours of the space, creates mood, highlights the elements you’ve invested in, and adds a level of safety and security that clients appreciate long after installation. It can welcome guests into your home and help to guide them along paths. We design lighting plans as part of the overall project not as an add on that feels disconnected.
Stairs, Retaining Walls, and Seating Walls
In Northern Colorado’s varied terrain, the hardscape work that connects different levels of a property is often as important as the destination itself. Stairs and retaining walls aren’t glamorous. But done well, they transform a difficult slope into a series of purposeful outdoor spaces. We design structural walls that work with the land, and seating walls that do double duty by defining space and providing a place to sit when the chairs are full.
Soake Plunge Pools
We’re proud to offer Soake plunge pools as part of our outdoor living design services. Soake pools are compact, cold plunge to fully heated capable pools designed for small to medium sized outdoor spaces. They offer the feel of a full swimming pool experience without the footprint or the need for a large scale construction project and can be installed in ground or partially above. For Northern Colorado homeowners who want a water element but don’t have the space for a traditional pool, Soake is one of the most compelling options on the market. We handle the full installation. Did we mention they are gorgeous too?
Who We Work With & Who We’re Built For
Summit works primarily with homeowners who have budgets of all shapes and sizes in Fort Collins, Windsor, Timnath, Loveland, Greeley, Johnstown, Berthoud, and Wellington. We take on a limited number of commercial projects each year as well. We may not be the right fit for every project or every client. We love to work with clients who want a space that’s designed specifically for their life, not a cookie cutter version of what everyone else has. Clients who value craft and are willing to invest in materials that age honestly. We want to build something they’ll use for 20 years, not something they’ll redo in five
Our average project isn’t inexpensive. It’s designed to last.
What Sets Summit Apart in a Crowded Market
There are a lot of patio contractors in Northern Colorado. We know that. Here is how we are different:
We design to your life, not to a catalog. Every project begins with a conversation about how you actually use your outdoor space, or how you wish you could. The design follows from that.
We’ve been doing this since 1999. Dave and Cara have built relationships in this community for over 25 years. Many of our projects come from past clients who are ready for the next phase of their outdoor space, from neighbors who watched a project go in down the street, or a referral after hanging out in one of our spaces.
We show our work. The craftsmanship in our finished spaces isn’t invisible, it’s the point. The way a joint fits. The way a wall meets the ground. The way a path curves through a yard. These things are worth noticing, and we’re proud when clients do.
Some of the Best Stories Ever Told Happened Outside
That’s a line we believe in. The backyard is where kids learn to catch. Where families rest and celebrate in the same summer. Where conversations happened over a fire that had burned down to coals. Where a neighbor brought something over and then stayed to hang out. We don’t just build patios. We build the places where those things happen.
If you’re ready to think about what your outdoor space could become, we’d love to hear about it. The first conversation is always just that, a conversation.
Summit Outdoor Living is a design-build hardscape and outdoor living company serving Fort Collins, Windsor, Timnath, Loveland, Greeley, Berthoud, Wellington, Johnstown, and surrounding communities in Northern Colorado. We’ve been building custom outdoor spaces since 1999.