A VISION OF SPAIN IN CALABASAS NO NEED TO TRAVEL WITH MEMORIES OF BEST VACATION IN THEIR BACKYARD.

Byline: Sandra Barrera

Staff Writer

Doug and Brigitte Johnston relish any chance to reminisce about their travels through Spain.

The Calabasas couple fell hard for the Iberian country's Moorish architecture, imposing fountains, light-reflecting pools and sprawling gardens.

So when it came time to design the outdoor space around their Mediterranean-style home, the Johnstons naturally turned to Spain's sights and sounds as inspiration.

"Are you familiar with the Alhambra?" asks Doug, a 51-year-old commercial Realtor. "It's the most-visited spot in Spain for tourists ... but it's one of the most peaceful places on Earth, with very carefully architected gardens and flowing water.

"They have water channels that run along the sidewalk," he says. "We picked that feature up for our front walkway."

To help realize their dream, they hired garden designer Scott Cohen of Canoga Park-based The Green Scene.

Destination: your backyard

As any landscape designer will tell you, outdoor living spaces designed to evoke favorite vacations are big business among high-end homeowners, especially as international travel becomes more complicated.

Rather than hassling with airport security checkpoints, hotel reservations and a shrinking U.S. dollar, many people are shelling out $500,000 and up for backyard destinations worthy of five-star resorts -- complete with exclusive putting greens, topiary children's gardens and swim-up bars.

"There's so much creativity that goes into these ... the sky really is the limit," says Melissa Sykes, senior vice president of original programming for HGTV.

HGTV is spotlighting the design of these dramatic outdoor oases in a new series called "Get Out, Way Out." The Johnstons' Calabasas yard will be featured on Wednesday night's episode.

Another Calabasas home, this one with a 52-foot-long water slide feeding into a crystalline swimming pool, will be the subject of an episode running May 30. Cohen also designed that backyard for owner Sharon Kinsley, adding a full-service outdoor kitchen and custom hopscotch court.

With scenic mountains as their backdrop, the Johnstons wanted the half- acre surrounding their luxurious Tuscan-style home in The Oaks of Calabasas to be a place for entertaining but also comfortable enough for hanging out with their 4-year-old daughter.

This home has it all

Recently completed, the deluxe yard has two kitchen areas equipped with waterproof plasma-screen TVs, a dining room, a separate bathroom for pool guests, 12 music speakers (some disguised as rocks), an 18-foot swim-up bar and a playground with a pair of kissing topiary giraffes at the entrance.

"All of our friends are now saying, 'You guys don't need to go anywhere anymore, you can just vacation right here,'" says Brigitte, 47, who sits at the dining table on a recent afternoon under the clay-roofed Spanish pavilion wrapped with 100 high-pressure misters that overlooks the L-shaped pool anchored at all four corners by gas-fed fire bowls.

Her voice competes with the crashing sound of water cascading from the columns into the pool.

"You're catching us at the total beginning, so we haven't even learned what area we are going to use the most," she says. "When Doug is away at work, my mom and my daughter sit out here or play on the Baja shelf."

The Baja shelf she's referring to makes up the large, shallow area at the second step of the pool and features a flush-

mounted telescoping fountain. Deeper waters allow a net to be stretched across for games of volleyball, water polo and other sports.

In the shadow of the pavilion, where the pool bends toward the spa, swimmers can seek refuge from the sun. Five mosaic-tile stools provide a spot at the swim-up bar, which is stocked with a beverage center and barbecue-rotisserie-smoker.

A flatscreen TV attached to a swivel arm above the bar provides the entertainment.

Opposite the swim-up bar, a perimeter-

overflow spa creates the glassy illusion of a mirror, reflecting everything from the fire bowls to the plants.

A massage in the pool

The spa features four jets in the seat walls and two heated foot jets. In a deep well area, a separate bank of six jets massages the entire body.

"As you turn and you spin in that area, you get your whole back and shoulders and hips and legs and the whole thing (massaged), so that's kind of nice," Cohen says. "And of course, in the deep well, there's room for two people who like each other, too."

Cohen says he used every trick up his sleeve when designing the Johnstons' space.

And he's done some whoppers, including casting the wife of one client as the topless model needed to make a custom mermaid porcelain tile for a side fountain.

For another client, he designed a stand-up spa shaped like a martini glass and installed one system of jets to shake and another to swirl.

"Every client is different," Cohen says. "You go into a tract development, and even though they're expensive homes, they're still tract homes, and the very first thing the homeowner wants to do is customize and personalize it.

"Fortunately, I can do the same floor plan three or four times and have completely different designs on each of them because the homeowners are different," he says. "Their lifestyles are different, their needs are different, their sun and shade angles are different, and their themes are different."

In the case of the Johnstons, the design he was going for was fence- to-fence Spain.

"Brigitte and I had sort of a spiritual experience in Toledo," Doug says, recalling the July evening they drove into the town from Madrid.

"I'm sure I drove 90 miles an hour because I wanted to get there before the sun went down.

"We came over a hill and looked down on Toledo," he says. "She grabbed my arm and said, 'I've been here before.' "

Sandra Barrera, [phone]

sandra.barrera(at)dailynews.com

GET OUT, WAY OUT: ELEGANT SPANISH PAVILION

What: The Johnston family of Calabasas models its backyard after a vacation in Spain with the help of Canoga Park-based designer Scott Cohen.

When: 9:30 p.m. Wednesday

Where: HGTV

CAPTION(S):

6 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) OUTDOOR ELEGANCE

Turn your backyard into a fabulous living space

(2 -- color) The pool flows into a covered poolside bar and kitchen area at the Calabasas home of Doug and Brigitte Johnston, where the backyard is a reflection of the features they liked about Spain.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer

(3 -- 4 -- color) Comfortable outdoor furniture and an elegant light fixture help turn Brigitte and Doug Johnston's Calabasas backyard, above, into an outdoor living room. Below, the Johnstons delight in their spectacular relaxation area.

Courtesy of The Green Scene

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer

(5 -- 6 -- color) Workers construct a 52-foot-long water slide for the backyard swimming pool of Sharon Kinsley's Calabasas home, featured May 30 on HGTV's "Get Out, Way Out."

Courtesy of The Green Scene