Featured photograph: An outdoor putting green features Coastal Source lighting. Photograph by Tamara Alvarez
Outdoor lighting, once a mere utilitarian source of backyard safety and illumination, has become a key design element in exterior spaces, prolonging the party long after the sun has gone down.
“Lighting fundamentally changes how people use their homes,” says Adam Domurad, inside sales design manager at Coastal Source, a specialist in outdoor lighting and audio. “Spaces that once emptied at sunset become the setting for dinners, celebrations, quiet conversations, and everyday family life. Patios become natural gathering places, pools take on the feel of private resorts, and gardens and pathways invite people to linger and explore rather than pass through.”
In addition to extending the usable hours, sophisticated lighting systems create an emotional viewing experience.
“During the day, people appreciate the pool’s shape, materials and landscaping,” says Martin Lopez, president of construction at Arizona-based Omni Pool Builders & Design. “At night, lighting reveals texture, movement, depth, and architectural details that go unnoticed in daylight.”
Strategic lighting, he adds, is a way to tell the story of the space.
“We’ve designed backyards where concealed lighting behind sheer descents and copper scuppers creates the illusion that the water itself is glowing,” he says. “Architectural uplighting emphasizes stacked stone, textured walls, and mature desert landscaping, while carefully placed lighting enhances fire features, creating dramatic contrasts between light, water and flame.”
Layering light across the landscape
To create these effects, lighting, which Domurad calls “one of the highest-impact investments in an outdoor living environment,” is layered throughout the property, connecting architecture, landscape, and living spaces.
In addition to shining a light on pathways to make them safe, it is used to highlight pools, specimen trees, outdoor kitchens, architectural details such as raised walls and columns, and to direct eyes to the focal points of the landscape.
Entertainment areas become more inviting, while illuminated pools and water features add an air of luxurious tranquility.
“These designs are built around atmosphere rather than illumination,” Domurad says, adding that standalone lighting systems have been replaced by fully integrated outdoor environments that work in tandem with various components, including audio.
“When thoughtfully combined, lighting and audio transform an outdoor space into something more immersive and emotionally engaging,” he says. “The result is a seamless experience where technology disappears into the background.”
Connecting lighting, architecture and audio
For a house in Duck Key, Florida, Coastal Source placed 230 of its lighting fixtures throughout the property, highlighting sculptures, specimen palms, water features, and gathering spaces in such a manner that they created what Domurad calls a “cohesive nighttime composition.”
The plant selections, including coconut palms, Frangipani, lipstick palms, and silver date palms, were chosen, in part, for how they would look after dark.
Increasingly, these integrated lighting and audio systems, which transition from everyday living to entertaining with the touch of a button, complement the architecture of the house.
On a 1.5-acre waterfront estate in Dublin, Ohio, Coastal Source wove lighting throughout the site in such a way that it highlights the structure as well as the setting.
Coastal Source Classic Hat Path Lights discreetly define circulation routes and guide people across the property, while Niche curved and square path fixtures signal transitions between key outdoor rooms. Niche wash lights set into the stoneware reveal architectural features, tree lights draw the eye skyward, and well lights subtly highlight planting beds and hardscape features.
A softer, smarter approach
Although color-changing LED systems are extremely popular, homeowners also are requesting subtle white lighting “to create a sophisticated resort atmosphere,” Lopez says. “Hidden fixtures, illuminated water features, integrated step lighting and lighting built directly into architectural elements are becoming standard in many luxury outdoor environments.”
Brittany Duncan, an associate landscape architect at Texas-based Design Ecology, says that clients increasingly are requesting “a softer lighting approach to the entire space, rather than illuminating only major features.”
Popular options include advanced systems that allow for zoning and dimming, custom light shows, and holiday displays.
“We have more clients requesting playful lighting options,” she says. “We’re working on a few pool projects that incorporate fiber-optic ‘star’ floors in which each spot of light is individually placed to get the nighttime sky effect.”
As technology becomes more sophisticated, homeowners will be able to set the scene by adjusting lighting intensity, turning on music, and changing the mood of the entire property.
“The next evolution isn’t brighter lighting or louder speakers,” Domurad says. “It’s greater coordination between outdoor technologies; at some point, they’ll become less visible, allowing the experience – not the equipment – to take center stage.”
The future, agrees Lopez, is “less about brighter lighting and more about intelligent lighting.”
“Ultimately, the most successful outdoor environments are not defined by the fixtures themselves, they’re defined by the memories created there,” says Domurad. “People rarely remember individual lights; they remember how the space made them feel.”
Coastal Source · Design Ecology · Omni Pool Builders & Design
