Their Forever Home
How one family found their way back outside
Some homes hold more than furniture and walls. They hold the people we’ve loved. The ordinary Tuesday evenings that turned into something sacred. The sound of a voice we still hear in quiet moments.
For the Conner family, home meant all of that — and more.
This is their forever home. Not just because they chose it, but because it is where all the sweet memories of their precious daughter Cadee are.
Cadee Bug, as they called her.
A beautiful yard they couldn’t use
Some backyards sit unused not because they’re small or ugly — but because they feel exposed.
You step outside and immediately feel the neighbors’ windows. You can hear the street. Someone could walk by and see everything. So you go back inside.
That’s exactly where the Conner family was. A beautiful yard. A hot tub they’d used five times in a year. A patio that felt more like a fishbowl than a retreat. Not somewhere they could fully relax. They wanted to “really make use of their backyard and to do that meant — creating a place where they could relax in privacy.
And then they built something that changed how they live in their own home. Not just a pergola. Not just privacy screens. A place — designed specifically around the privacy problem no standard kit could solve.
Privacy wasn’t optional.
It was essential.
The Problem Wasn’t the Yard. It Was the Exposure.
From the outside, the Conner backyard looked like everything anyone could want. A hot tub. A patio. A beautiful stretch of lawn. Space to breathe.
But stepping outside felt like stepping onto a stage. The neighbors’ windows. The street sounds. The sense that anyone walking by could see everything. So they’d go back inside. The hot tub sat mostly still — used maybe five times in a year. The evenings that could have been spent outside, weren’t.
Aubrey Conner describes the moment it really landed for her. She was driving home through her neighborhood one evening and saw a couple outside watching a movie together — completely on display, visible to every car that passed. And she thought: That’s why we didn’t go out there.
“Nobody knows when we are back here.” — Aubrey Conner
That last sentence says everything. Nobody knows when we are back here. That’s not just a privacy preference — it’s the difference between a backyard you retreat to and one you avoid.
The Connors had a yard they loved but couldn’t use. The hot tub sat mostly still. They rarely came outside in the evenings. The space was beautiful. It just wasn’t theirs.
Why This Wasn’t a Kit Problem
Here’s what made the Conner project impossible for a standard pergola kit:
Their privacy challenge wasn’t just overhead — it was lateral. Neighbors could see in from multiple angles. The fence line needed to be addressed. They wanted to screen a hot tub without making it feel like a bunker. They wanted light. They wanted airflow. They wanted it to feel beautiful, not fortified.
A prefab kit gives you a fixed size, basic overhead shade, and surface anchoring. It does not give you custom-configured privacy panels, engineered lateral screening, lattice that blocks the view at fence height while letting light through above, or integrated electrical so you can actually use the space at night.
What the Conner build actually required:
- Custom-sized pavilion and pergola — not a fixed kit footprint
- Engineered privacy screens with solid lower panels + lattice above the fence line
- Targeted sightline blocking from specific neighbor angles
- Latticed walls that let light and air move freely while concealing the space
- Integrated electrical through the posts — no exposed conduit, no extension cords
- A movie screen on one privacy wall for outdoor theater nights
- Structural engineering for Utah wind and snow loads
- A plaque. A specific, personal plaque. On a specific beam.
That last item matters more than any of the others. We’ll come back to it.
What They Built
Western Timber Frame designed and built a combined pavilion and pergola structure for the Connors — with custom-configured privacy screens wrapping the space in a way that addressed every sightline problem they had.
The lattice panels are solid at the fence line — blocking the view from neighboring yards — and open above, letting afternoon light filter through while giving the space an airy, warm feel rather than a closed-off one. The structure curves through the yard with an L-shape that encloses the hot tub area and creates what the family now calls their clubhouse.
Electrical runs internally through the posts — Western Timber Frame’s TimberVolt® Power Post system — so there are no junction boxes bolted to the outside, no conduit snaking along the wood, no extension cords. Just clean, functional posts with outlets and switches integrated invisibly into the timber itself.
A movie screen was installed on one of the privacy walls. A patio heater tucks neatly under the pavilion roof. String lights hang across the structure.
What changed:
The hot tub — once used five times in a year — is now used five times a month.
“We never really came out in our yard much before. We used our hot tub maybe five times in a year. Now we use it at least five times a month — and more. Now we are outside every night. Nobody knows when we are back here. We sit out here until midnight and love to talk.” — Ed Conner, Utah
Outside every night.
That’s not a small thing.
It means freedom.
It means peace.
It means they can stay.
A Gift Placed Quietly on a Beam
The Conner family lost their daughter, Cadee.
They didn’t ask for a plaque. They didn’t mention it as part of the project. They were focused on building a space where their family could be together — and that was enough.
But their Design Consultant, Dave Bunker, had listened. Really listened. Not just to the measurements and the privacy panels and the electrical requirements — but to the family. To what this space meant to them. To who was missing from it.
On the day of installation, Dave surprised them with a memorial plaque mounted on one of the beams. The Conners didn’t find out until it was already there — already part of the structure, already part of their home. The plaque reads simply: We Love You CADEE BUG
“We joke that we have our own little club house, and we are putting Cadee’s name on our club house — so it’s pretty cool.”
— Aubrey Conner
There is no kit that comes with that. There is no prefab solution that holds a family’s grief and love and turns it into something permanent in the backyard where sweet memories are made.
This is their forever home — because it is where all the sweet memories of their precious daughter Cadee are.
And now they’re out there until midnight. Together. In a place that’s finally, completely theirs.
We Love You, CADEE BUG
The Conners hadn’t known it was coming. They found out the way you find out about something that was always meant to be there — suddenly, and then permanently.
“We joke that we have our own little club house, and we are putting Cadee’s name on our club house — so it’s pretty cool.”
— Aubrey Conner
Dave Bunker has since become a close friend of the family. That’s not a coincidence. That’s what happens when someone shows up for you in a way you didn’t ask for, didn’t expect, and didn’t know you needed — and gets it exactly right.
There is no kit that holds a family’s love and grief and turns it into something permanent in the backyard where sweet memories are made. There is no prefab solution that knows a daughter’s nickname, or thinks to carve it into wood.
That kind of care isn’t a product. It’s a decision someone makes about how to show up for the people they serve.
Outside Every Night
There’s something quietly significant about a family that lost a child finding their way back outside — to the place where her memory lives, to the yard that is now their clubhouse, to midnight conversations and movie nights and evenings that belong entirely to them.
Privacy made that possible. Not just as a design feature. But as a form of permission. Permission to stop going back inside. Permission to stay.
This is their forever home.
Now, finally, they live in it.
If your backyard holds memories worth staying for, we’d be honored to help you make it a place you’ll never want to leave.
