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It’s hard to find a destination not worth falling for in Steve and Rochelle Bochner’s meandering outdoor wonderland. You might get lost along the way—but that’s the idea. 

Perhaps you would start by sipping, swirling and savoring the couple’s collection of Mexican spirits in the alfresco tequila bar, sated by a slice of pie from the woodfired pizza oven. Then you could wander the roving pathways through a menagerie of fruit trees, blooming shrubs, towering cacti and carefully placed boulders before running into Sunny, their 24-year-old pet African tortoise.

You might spy Steve brandishing a stogie around the firepit in the outdoor “smokers’ lounge” or decide to perfect your game on the putting green before curling up on the custom swing under the covered patio. Wherever you land, it’s about the journey rather than the destination—and that is exactly what the owners and Phoenix Home & Garden Masters of the Southwest award-winning landscape architect Donna Winters had in mind.

“They wanted it to feel like being on a nature walk in the forest—a parklike environment,” Winters explains. “The goal was to create a sense of discovery in the landscape, with things such as sitting boulders that provide rest, and trees that provide privacy and comfort.”

But it wasn’t always this way. The yard was flat, surrounded by pink perimeter walls, black lava rock and a dense grouping of mesquite and pomegranate trees along the edges. “There was some weird stuff,” Rochelle laughs. “But I fell in love with the pool and the yard. They just spoke to me, and I knew this was where we needed to be.”

Rochelle, a retired former nonprofit director, and Steve, a lawyer, were adamant about giving the setting an authentic desert feel, distinct from their Lake Tahoe winter retreat. “Steve is a major skier,” she says. “It’s hard because he’s a winter boy—he loves the snow, so we needed to create a unique space that made him want to be here in Arizona.”

Winters and her team incorporated grades and contouring to craft a sculpted, more natural look. “We combined textural plants—such as agave, totem poles, Mexican fence post cacti and toothless desert spoon—and then integrated colors to contrast with those experiences,” she says.

The pathways are made of stabilized granite in place of loose gravel to simulate walking on a hiking trail. “There are no dead ends in this yard,” Winters insists. “You can move anywhere in a million different ways—and there’s something around every corner.”

The designer applied a similar treatment—sans the footpaths—to the front yard, taking it from flat and open to layered and private using a palette of native plants and trees. “The charge was to create an experience that the couple could enjoy from outside in and inside out,” Winters notes. “Everything has a view and a purpose. We were able to achieve that because they were kind enough to invite us into their home. That way, we could see every vantage point, sit in every chair and observe the views as they see them.”