70 Designer Patio Ideas for Backyard Living All Year Long

In this 1920s Mediterranean style Palm Beach estate named Casa della Porta, designer Mary McDonald selected simple yet elegant white seating (Formations) to allow the loggia’s dramatic vaulting and arches to star. Fabric, Perennials. Lanterns, Paul Ferrante

In a 1901 seven-story townhouse on New York’s Upper East Side, Jesse Carrier and Mara Miller paid homage to the house’s Beaux Arts beginnings by installing a carved French limestone fountain to anchor the rooftop terrace with furniture by David Sutherland surrounding it. Carrier describes it as “a little slice of private park in the sky.”

In this Kips Bay Palm Beach Show House, designer Billy Ceglia’s crisp monochromatic scheme extends from lacquered bamboo-patterned armchairs and chaises (Brown Jordan) to hammered wrought-iron chandeliers by Currey & Company. Beneath the blue-painted ceilings for never-ending sunny days, chinoiserie seating and a treillage screen nod to traditional Floridian decorating motifs.

In a 18th-century landmark in Charleston’s South of Broad neighborhood, designers Thomas Jayne and William Cullum chose stainless steel lounge chairs (Janus et Cie) with Cactus Flower cushions (Christopher Farr Cloth) for the first-floor piazza thats design came from an 1820s Regency-style addition to the home.

Vietnamese silk lanterns dangle from the dining pergola, shrouded in banana and areca palms, bleeding heart, and elephant’s ears in designer Mimi McMakin’s home, a cedar-shingled former church fronting the Palm Beach lake trail.

In an ancestral millhouse in the North of England, designer Mary Graham, pictured here with her design partner Nicole Salvesen, stands on the dining terrace, where sage green trim and old cobblestone create an enchanting backdrop. A lantern by Hector Finch illuminates the space by night, and the garden design is by Willa Bourne-Arton.

In her Cotswolds home, Oka cofounder Sue Jones selected charming spiral topiaries to edge the sunny front terrace. Woven chairs by Oka sit in front of them to provide ample seating.

In a home in the Hamptons, a burst of Limelight hydrangeas beckons guests to a garden table dressed in a gingham tablecloth from homeowner and linen designer Julia Amory’s collection and antique majolica.

At this Kips Bay Dallas Show House, Todd Events grounded this pool folly in a floral Tibetan knot rug (Perennials) with French-inspired teak-frame lounge chairs (Sutherland), a skirted bar, and leafy blue pillows and curtains (fabric, Morris & Co.).

Light from this garden casts inside an Upper East Side townhouse designed by Lucy Doswell. Just as you’ll find little pops of juicy color from the artwork indoors, greenery colors this sun-filled dining area.

A faux-bois table (Diane Husson) plays off the natural beauty surrounding the dining terrace at architect Paul Bates's Birmingham cottage. Chinese Chippendale chairs (Hall Bradley for Brown Jordan) echo the patterns of trellis which are often seen in gardens.

Washington, D.C.-based designer Byron Risdon envisioned the lush patio at the Kips Bay Decorator Show House in Dallas as an entertaining haven. In the primary seating area, Risdon replaced the existing fireplace with Strike’s Laguna stone mantel and created a conversational pit with crescent sofas upholstered in a woven salmon-and-cream acrylic fabric by Perennials.

A larger-than-life glazed ceramic and lava stone mural by Michelle Grabner animates the inviting patio at this art collector's Florida retreat designed by Ellen Hamilton.

Designer Summer Thornton pulled inspiration from the courtyards of New Orleans for the playful patio at her Chicago townhouse. The black and white floor features stone (Exquisite Surfaces) sourced from quarries in cold parts of northern China and Europe.

Esther Cayzer-Colvin drew inspiration from her own family when it came time to decorate the indoor and outdoor rooms of her English estate. For example, the dining set on her garden patio was passed down by Cayzer-Colvin's grandmother Nancy Lancaster, the influential post-war Anglo-American designer and co-owner at Colefax and Fowler.

At this Napa Valley family retreat, designer Dan Fink and architect Carl Baker of Ike Kligerman Barkley extended the living space by adding a pergola-covered gravel dining patio just off the great room. Striped cushions (fabric by Perennials) outfit the seating around a custom iron-and-teak dining table.

When designers Jeffry Weisman and and Andrew Fisher first discovered their San Miguel de Allende home, they were struck by the patio garden's cool, dappled light and and gentle, splashing outdoor fountains. Here, custom urns flank the entrance to a magical middle garden.

At designers Jeffry Weisman and Andrew Fisher's home in San Miguel de Allende, a series of sinuous bronze-tone nesting tables on the garden patio is set for Christmas dinner. Spheres of greenery and florals shroud electrified chandeliers overhead, strung from the jacaranda trees. Tables and teak Klismos chairs, Fisher Weisman Collection

Built in 1840, this London rowhouse recently redesigned by Gary McBournie features an expansive urban patio in the back. Custom latticework garden mirrors flank the terrace’s stone fountain, adding symmetry and the illusion of depth. Furnishings, McKinnon and Harris

At this Ross, California, home, landscape designer Erica Timbrell carved out extra poolside seating with the addition of a patio under a canopy of California redwoods. A teak sectional commands the stone-wrapped alcove.