Playboy's Patio-Terrace

No cosmopolite Is Immune to an occasional longing for some parcel of sky-domed greensward to offset the concrete, chrome, glass and steel that may make city living elegant and convenient -- but decidedly nonpastoral. For the young man on the way up to his penthouse or about to turn into the driveway of his town house, a sky-high terrace or ground-level patio offers the perfect on-the-spot answer for hours in the sun or evenings of unconfined entertainment. An urban oasis which delightfully avoids the crawl through country-bound city traffic, the patio-terrace offers the man-about-town expanded horizons for after-office-hours hosting, and a corner for simply getting away from it all without having to go away from it all.

While Playboy's Patio-terrace has been laid out as a luxurious 40' x 34' adjunct to a penthouse apartment, its basic design and principal features can be converted to grace the rear-lawn area of a town house (the main design change would involve treating the penthouse's cantilevered sundeck as a second-story balcony). Playboy herein presents an exemplary island in the metropolitan sun; it is also replete with elements and details that can readily be adapted to individual preferences determined by available space and finances.

In our patio-terrace, we've incorporated the latest designs for leisurely living, using as our yardstick the same desiderata we applied in creating Playboy's Penthouse Apartment (September 1956), Playboy's Weekend Hideaway (April 1959) and The Playboy Town House (May 1962), to wit, a warmly personalized, largely self-sustaining living unit requiring a minimum of the bachelor's much-in-demand attentions, and offering a maximum of contemporary convenience and comfort.

The patio-terrace provides the perfect warm-weather setting for a host of hosting endeavors. It is the sine qua non for such sociabilities as an expansive cocktail party, or nocturnal (concluded on page 102)Playboy's Patio-Terrace(continued from page 99) merrymaking -- all made more festive by virtue of being enjoyed alfresco.

It provides a star-ceilinged ballroom for dancing, a pastime you'd normally have to forgo if wall-to-wall carpeting covers your digs' floors. It provides the natural setting for the gourmandial joys of a barbecue.

Its striking cantilevered sundeck may be used for secluded all-over sun worshiping and permits other terrace activities of a less-sedentary nature to go on unimpeded. The deck itself acts as a sunshade for those beneath it who prefer to limit their outdoorsmanship to fresh air. But most importantly, the patio-terrace provides a respite, an escape hatch from the hurly-burly of city living.

Our penthouse terrace occupies the south end of a luxury apartment offering eye-arresting vistas of the city below. It abuts the picture-windowed, glass-doored living room to its north and is serviced through the kitchen facing on its northwest corner. Food preparation for group galas or tête-à-tête dining is handled in the apartment's kitchen, with easy access to the terrace's food-and-drink bar.

A good place to commence our guided tour is the dining-drinking promontory from whence so many good things flow. Its guest counter is standard bar height and made of polished Italian marble, with a footrail gleaming at its base. Around the counter are four sleekly comfortable Kagan-Dreyfuss Unicorn chairs. The bar tending host can here keep in conversational contact with his guests while playing master mixologist or short-order chef. The white-Formica food-and-drink-preparation counter is three-feet high with cabinets at its base faced in Formica. It is equipped with a Trak Gourmet Range electric two-burner hot plate, a stainless-steel sink and a Whirlpool Ice Magic ice maker, which produces ice cubes with a rapidity that will keep up with the thirst-slaking demands of any balmy-weather revel. When not in use, the counter's work area can be completely concealed by a spring-loaded cover. The entire bar is suspended over the floor by a metal post which extends through the counter top to act as a support for the awning framework overhead.

Forming an ell with the bar is a storage counter that extends "through" the picture windows into the kitchen and is topped by a wood chopping board for over half its length; beneath the board is a hopper for liquor and wine bottles stored at room temperatures, and a refrigerated hopper below that for storing chilled potables of all sorts. Next to the hoppers: a rack drawer for dish storage that pulls out into the kitchen for restocking keeps china in steady supply.

An upper cabinet against the kitchen wall boasts a stepsaving master-control panel, from which the host can operate a varied assortment of electronic gear -- the TV set at the other end of the cabinet, all of the terrace's lighting, the hi-fi, whose portable cylindrical speakers may be placed in any area of the terrace where stereo is desired, utilizing the concealed outlets. The control panel also regulates the terrace pool's fountain and the varicolored lights which play on it in rainbowlike profusion. It operates the counter's awning, which, covering the entire island, is made up of interlocking porcelain-enameled aluminum slats equipped on each end with steel plates. To extend or withdraw the awning, two magnets, one on each side, travel along the tapering framework, picking up or depositing each slat in the desired place. The framework is of anodized aluminum; its support holds a bar lamp. The panel also holds phone and intercom unit.

Next to the master-control panel is a Rangemaster Hot Serve infrared warming cabinet, which has an upper shelf for keeping hot food piping and a lower shelf for warming. Its glass doors open onto both the terrace and the kitchen. Beneath the warming cabinet is a shelf for stowing additional glassware for festivities of major proportions. Nearby, just a turnaround from the host, is the Eclipse charcoal grill, which swivels 360 degrees to keep the smoke away from the grill tender; equipped with electric rotisserie, it can turn out burgers or a rare roast of beef with ease. Its companion piece is a basting-sauce-and-condiment table; both fit into the terrace's floor sockets and are removable for storage.

The floor around the bar area is of poured concrete. Farther out on the terrace, the flooring is terrazzo ground smooth for dancing. Other areas are surfaced with white cement, or gravel and paving stones with moss and grass growing between. The perimeter of our penthouse terrace has a four-foot-high brick parapet, which provides safety without obscuring the panoramic view.

On the living-room side of the terrace, opposite the food-and-drink bar, is an intimately appointed corner, formed by a pair of chairs and a couch from Van Keppel-Green, a corner table containing another master-control panel, and a round coffee table. South of this, a concrete basin houses a two-foot-deep decorative pool, dramatized by a coolly splashing fountain and varicolored lighting (worked musically through the hi-fi by a Colorsound 3500 Translator) which can be put to evocative use in the evening. The basin is formed by a sloping, eccentrically shaped ring of dark volcanic-rock segments which have porous surfaces to hold air mattresses and pillows, and to absorb moisture from the feet of wading terrace-ites. At the outer edge of the ring is a recessed lighting strip which illuminates the ground around the perimeter. The ring is broken on one side by a large planting tub, and on the other by a TV well whose metal cylinder contains a color set; when not in use, the TV can be lowered into the well until its metal top (which acts as a sun shield for daytime viewing) forms a weathertight seal with the well's circumference. When raised to viewing height, the screen may be rotated 360 degrees by remote control.

Beyond the pool, in the terrace's southeastern corner, is a romantically sequestered nook, perfect for à deux moments. Trees and shrubs form a verdant curtain that screens off the Van Keppel-Green settee; here is another table containing a control panel to suffuse the area with appropriate mood music. Rocks with polished horizontal tops hold drinks, ashtrays, and any third party thoughtless enough to make it a crowd. The parapet in this corner is pierced by vertical slots, through which seated viewers can enjoy the dramatic cityscape.

The southwest corner of the terrace sports the boldly conceived free-form sundeck sheltering a Petal table and a quartet of Bertoia Diamond chairs. The underside of the reinforced-concrete sundeck houses infrared heating tubes to take the chill from the evening air, recessed lights and speaker jacks. The base of the sundeck holds a semicircular upholstered bench in its hollow that's brightened by a hanging shadow lantern. A steel spiral staircase extends eight feet up to the sundeck which is surrounded by a steel guardrail laced with awningstriped canvas that supplies sun-and-breeze control plus complete privacy for sunning sans suits. The deck, emblazoned with mosaic inlay, holds a pair of Van Keppel-Green reclining chaise longues, speaker jacks and a low table housing another control unit. A telescope is mounted at the narrow end of the sundeck to bring penthouse habitants even closer to the stars. A 16-inch-high fieldstone retaining wall, which encompasses the sundeck area and semicircles around to the bar, is wide enough to hold cushions for additional seating. It is backed with plantings which conceal the outer parapet.

No ephemeral phantom of delight, Playboy's patio-terrace is a refreshingly feasible answer to the city squire's quest for a touch of outdoor living. Whole or in part, it points the urban way to the romantic joys of warm-weather welkin ringing.