During the warmer months, Peter Thalmann and his family spend time in the backyard of their Holliston, Mass.,
home, shooting hoops and practicing golf shots. And each year, the arrival of winter meant abandoning their
outdoor space and sticking mostly inside the house.

Not anymore. This winter the family enjoys iceskating in the backyard almost every weekend, thanks to a
$35,000 rink Mr. Thalmann put in. There’s also a custom-designed snow-tubing run cut into a hill for the
children to enjoy while Mom and Dad are drilling into the frozen ground to plant more than 2,000 tulip bulbs.
“We’re out there all the time,” says the 57-year-old engineer. “It’s revived my
interest in winter.”

With many homeowners already treating their backyards as an “outside room,” now the $70 billion outdoor
furnishings industry wants to make it a year-round affair, even in some pretty chilly parts of the country.
Hot-tub makers are pitching new winterized models with features such as remote control (warm it up before
you step outside) and deeper seating (everything from the neck down stays in the warm water). For ski fans,
some companies are taking professional snow-making machine sand cross-country trail groomers and downsizing
them into home versions, while golf retailers say improved materials for home putting greens make them usable
in cold weather. And with greenhouse sales up 60% overall in five years, makers are rolling out smaller versions
for weekend gardeners—Smith & Hawken, for instance, introduced an $800 “patio greenhouse” last year with
hydraulic vents to keep the right temperature.

Of course, in a winter that’s brought record lows to cities across the country, the idea of upping the backyard
time may sound odd, and critics say it only adds to a cluttered look for yards (in some cases running into
trouble with the neighbors). But some homeowners say they see the cold-weather activities as one more way to
get return from the investment. Prominent architects say they’ve noticed a shift, too.

Bart Prince, an Albuquerque, N.M., designer whose clients range from celebrities to chief executives, says one
recent project in Columbus, Ohio, included a conservatory where the indoor pool lets swimmers duck under a
wall to get to an outdoor hot tub (a bubble keeps it comfortable in the coldest months). People “want spaces they
can use all year-round,” he says.

Indeed, a desire to extend the season is going beyond backyard activities in some cases to influence home
design. For a client in East Hampton, N.Y., architect Alexander Gorlin, who is also working on an apartment for
fellow architect Daniel Libes kind, is drawing on Versailles to design a heated orangerie where the owners can
still contemplate the citrus trees in winter. Still, he says, some people want something more active. One client
in Genesee, Colo., took the 200-foot-long roof deck Mr. Gorlin designed and began using it as a ski jump. “It
wasn't intentional on my part,” the architect explains. “They discovered they can jump off the roof and zoom
right down the hill.”

Extension of the House

To some degree, obviously, people have always found ways to enjoy the outdoors when winter arrives. In
colder parts of the country, that means snowmen and sledding, while those in more temperate areas could
always crank up the swimming-pool heater or just throw on an extra sweater to sit on the deck. But apart
from the occasional backyard skating pond, using the yard in winter tended to be a sporadic—and usually
an impromptu—event.

Then came the real-estate boom of the 1990s and the extensive movement toward nesting. Across the
country, homeowners increasingly saw the backyard as an extension of the house, putting in elaborate
barbecue stations that amounted to outdoor kitchens, building evermore- elaborate decks and loading up on
expensive outdoor furniture. Retailers from HomeDepot to Gardeners Eden fed the trend, while dwelling
magazines started showing yards dressed up with hammocks, trellises and fire pits.Now manufacturers
and stores say stretching backyard use into winter months is the logical next step.

At Cal Spas, an outdoor-equipment maker in Pomona, Calif., the cold-weather push stemmed from an effort
to increase sales. President Casey Loyd says a group of 20 executives got together to find ways of beefing
up the winter appeal and help dealers who saw their business slow in the cooler months. Besides adding a
remote-startup option to their spas, the company built in towel and robe warmers (one high-end unit has a
flat-screen TV that rises from the side), and started running ads that show a couple sipping champagne
in the spa surrounded by a snowy backyard, with the slogan “Stay hot in the winter.” Now Mr. Loyd says
winter sales are growing 20%faster than sales in warmer months.

Though some of this isn't expensive (Restoration Hardware sells a snowball-making tool for $4.99), outfitting
the yard for winter can become costly. Greenhouses can easily top $5,000, while some ice rinks are $50,000
or more. For people in snow deprived areas, even the white stuff doesn’t come cheap. For about $2,000, an
outfit in Natick, Mass., called Snow Station sells a snowmaker called the Backyard Blizzard. Hooked up to a
hose and electric outlet, the device promises to make 50 cubic feet of snow an hour.

Helping fuel the idea of the year-round backyard are homeowners with vacation homes in colder climates such
as the Hamptons. Some who used their homes just for the summer are now returning for three- and four day
weekends in the winter, long after the day-trippers and renters have left. “Not everyone is going home at the
end of the season now,” says Mark Hutker, an architect on Martha’s Vineyard who builds homes that cost as
much as $3 million. He’s just finished a 9,800-square-foot house on the island with a screened porch on one
end and an attached Victorian-style conservatory with heated floors on the other (the home is owned by a
couple who live in Boston but plan to use the home year-round).

Winter Weekends

Richard and Paula Rosenberg have owned a $1.5 million vacation home in Long Beach Island, N.J., for eight
years, but spent time there only in the summer. Wanting to get more use of it year-round, they installed a hot
tub and a mini-greenhouse, known as a “cold frame,” to grow vegetables in the backyard. Now they visit nearly
every weekend—more often than they do in the summer—since the drive is at least an hour shorter from their
New York City apartment without the summer beach traffic. “We prefer this time of year,” says Mrs. Rosenberg.

But it isn’t always easy keeping up your own winter wonderland. Taking care of a backyard skating rink, for
instance, can require daily maintenance in some cases, including shoveling off loose ice and reflooding to add
layers. Gardeners face some obstacles, too, such as battling with frozen ground or clearing off snow to prevent damage to greenhouses and hoop-style plant covers. Investor Jay Erlandson says it’s been tough persuading
guests to don bathing suits and scamper down an icy 150-foot path to his $8,000 hot tub (he spent an extra
$1,000 to have a crane lift it over his Tabernash, Colo., house, so it could be positioned on a rock outcropping
with a mountain view). “I have to go out there first in my robe, with a snow shovel and a can of Red Bull,” he says.

It’s not always popular with the neighbors, either. In the upscale suburb of Bloomfield Village, Mich., a homeowner sparked a protracted battle when he installed a $25,000 rink with an ice-making machine. Neighbors complained
about the noise and appearance, eventually persuading the township zoning board to order the rink’s removal.
“It was big and unattractive, and made a droning hum in the middle of the night,” says Larry Nutson, manager
of the homeowners association. The homeowner, Dan Israel, found a way to keep skating, though: He
bought a secluded lot a mile away and moved the rink. To thaw any opposition, he plays host to frequent
skating parties, where he hands out hot chocolate and S’mores. “I’m trying to be user-friendly,” he says.

One of the fastest-growing parts of the winter movement is gardening. The National Gardening Association
says sales of cold frames are up 79%.And sales of hardy plants such as Icicle Pansies, which sometimes
bloom right in the snow, are booming, says research director Bruce Butterfield. “Everyone’s pushing the
season as far as it will go.”