It’s been about 20 years since we began talking about the Outdoor Room as a trend of great importance to all those in the hearth, barbecue and patio industries. At this point, many consumers who were creating an upscale outdoor lifestyle have positively impacted all of you – manufacturers and retailers alike – to a greater or lesser extent.

It may have been by the purchase of a fire pit, or the purchase of a built-in barbecue along with the island, refrigerator and bar stools. The ticket could have been only $1,300, or $6,000, or $15,000 or a heck of a lot more.

If you’re one of the smart, or lucky, ones, your sales could have been in the hundreds of thousands of dollars as customers created outdoor kitchens, separate areas for dining, and/or different locations for relaxing in front of an outdoor fire.

Now, we believe a Tipping Point has been reached. Not only have many of the best builders in the country added Outdoor Rooms to their offerings, but a subset of those builders has been formed – specialists in designing and building Outdoor Rooms. Yep, that’s the only, or primary, job they do.

Many architects and landscape architects also have been creating Outdoor Rooms, and for quite a number of years. Put all those groups together, count the Outdoor Rooms they will build year after year, beginning right now, and the numbers are staggering.

The amount spent on an Outdoor Room can easily run “north of $250,000,” says Tim Gehman, director of Design for Toll Brothers. The Pennsylvania-based company ranked fifth among the nation’s homebuilders in 2014, based on sales of $2.7 billion representing 4,235 closings the previous year.

John Shippy, an Outdoor Room specialist based in Lake Forest, California, has been involved in a landscaping and Outdoor Room project that cost between $5 million and $8 million. Florida Outdoor Room specialist Ryan Hughes has completed projects in North Carolina and as far afield as Toronto, Canada. 

Those in the design and building industries appear to be firmly involved in the Outdoor Room trend, and tell us they see it maintaining for a long, long time. 

Match that with the 75-million Baby Boomer generation (ages 51 to 69) that is in the process of retiring and purchasing retirement homes; Generation X (ages 35 to 50), 65 million strong and in their prime earning years, and the huge Millennial generation (ages 18-34) that has just entered its home-buying years and has a great desire for outdoor living. 

The results could be – should be – a Perfect Storm (I know, that phrase has been overused and abused, but it fits well here).

We have the design and building communities on board; we have three groups of consumers ready and already buying homes, second homes and retirement homes; and we have manufacturers prepared with an array of upscale Outdoor Room products (well, the hearth industry could be doing a much better job designing upscale, outdoor fireplaces).

The Tipping Point has been reached; your coming work years should be very rewarding.