Hear from Our Customers
Most Brookhaven homes were built between the 1950s and 1970s. That means a lot of backyards still have the same aging concrete slab they started with functional, but not exactly where you want to spend a Saturday evening. An outdoor kitchen changes that. It turns a forgotten corner of your property into the place where your weekends actually happen.
The return is real too. Industry data consistently puts outdoor kitchen ROI at 55–200% at resale, and the National Association of Realtors cites a 100% return on investment. With Brookhaven home values running in the $270,000–$314,000 range right now, a well-built outdoor kitchen is one of the smarter ways to put your equity to work whether you’re planning to sell in three years or stay for twenty.
What most people don’t think about until it’s too late is how Delaware County winters treat outdoor masonry. The freeze-thaw cycles here temperatures swinging from the teens up into the 50s and back down again will crack inferior materials within a few years. The outdoor kitchens we build use frost-proof materials, properly prepared bases, and construction methods designed specifically for this climate. That’s not a bonus feature. That’s the baseline.
Spennato Landscaping is based in Aston Township, which shares a direct border with Brookhaven Borough. When you call us, you’re not reaching a regional company routing calls through a call center. You’re calling a crew that knows Edgmont Avenue, understands the Penn-Delco school district corridor, and has been working on Brookhaven and Delaware County properties for over 15 years.
That local history matters more than it sounds. We know the clay-heavy soil that runs through Brookhaven and this part of the county. We know the Brookhaven Borough permit process zoning, building, electrical, and gas permits all require separate applications, and we handle every one of them. You don’t navigate that process alone.
Renato Spennato is personally involved in every project. One team handles your build from the first site visit through the final walk-through. No subcontractors showing up unannounced. No gaps in communication. The same people who pour the foundation are the same people who answer the phone if you have a question six months later.
It starts with a site visit. We come out to your property, look at the actual space, assess what’s there including any existing concrete or slab that may have shifted or settled over the decades and talk through how you use your backyard. The design comes from that conversation, not from a catalog.
From there, we handle the permits. In Brookhaven Borough, a full outdoor kitchen build requires a zoning permit, a building permit, and typically separate electrical and plumbing or gas permits. We pull all of them. We coordinate the inspections. If you’re in one of Brookhaven’s HOA communities, we’re familiar with that submission process too. You don’t have to figure out which form goes where.
Once permits are approved, the build begins. Base preparation comes first compacted gravel sub-base, proper drainage slope, and any corrections to existing conditions that would cause problems later. Then the structure goes up: masonry, utility connections for gas, water, and electric, appliances, and finishes. We give you a timeline at the start and we work to it. Most of our clients are commuting to Philadelphia or Wilmington during the week they don’t have time to babysit a project. You shouldn’t have to. One crew, one timeline, one finished outdoor kitchen ready before summer.
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There’s no standard package here, because Brookhaven backyards aren’t standard. Some are working with a 20-by-30-foot space behind a 1960s cape cod. Others have more room to work with. We design around your specific lot, your sun exposure, your drainage situation, and what you actually want to do back there whether that’s weekend cookouts for the neighborhood, quiet dinners with the family, or a full entertaining setup with a bar and refrigeration.
A complete outdoor kitchen build from us typically includes the full masonry structure, a built-in grill, countertops in your choice of material, and whatever combination of sink, storage, refrigerator, side burners, or bar seating fits your goals and your space. Gas line connections, water lines, and electrical are all coordinated and permitted through Brookhaven Borough’s building department not left as your problem to sort out after the fact.
Materials are selected for Delaware County’s climate specifically. Frost-proof stone veneer, stainless steel appliances, marine-grade cabinetry, and base construction that accounts for the clay-heavy soil common throughout Brookhaven and this part of the county. If the existing surface on your property needs work before we build and on a lot of Brookhaven’s older homes, it does we tell you that upfront, not halfway through the project.
Yes and it’s not just one permit. In Brookhaven Borough, a full outdoor kitchen build typically requires a zoning permit, a building permit, and separate permits for electrical and plumbing or gas work. The zoning application needs to show your proposed structure with dimensions and placement on the lot. Zoning approval has to come through before the building permit process can move forward, so the sequencing matters.
This is one of the areas where working with a contractor who has actually built in Brookhaven makes a real difference. We’ve been through this process with the borough’s building department and we manage it completely applications, coordination, inspections. If you’re in a community with an HOA or architectural review board requirements on top of the borough permits, we handle that submission process too. You don’t have to figure out which office to call or which form to file. We take care of it.
The range is wide because the scope varies so much. A straightforward grill station with countertop space and storage on a properly prepared base typically starts around $12,000–$15,000. A mid-range build with a built-in grill, sink, refrigerator, bar seating, and masonry structure runs $20,000–$35,000. Full outdoor kitchen setups with premium appliances, custom stone work, and covered structures can reach $40,000 and above.
For Brookhaven specifically, the mid-range is where most projects land and it’s also where the return on investment makes the most sense relative to local home values. With median sale prices running in the $270,000–$314,000 range, a $20,000–$30,000 outdoor kitchen is a proportionate investment that moves the needle at resale. The one thing that drives cost up unexpectedly is the existing site condition. A lot of Brookhaven’s homes have older concrete slabs that need to be addressed before anything gets built on top of them. We assess that during the initial site visit and give you a clear picture of what’s involved before any work starts.
This is one of the most important questions to ask, and most people don’t ask it until after they’ve had a problem. Pennsylvania’s freeze-thaw cycle is genuinely hard on outdoor masonry. Temperatures in Brookhaven can swing from the low teens up into the 50s and back down multiple times through a single winter. That kind of cycling expands and contracts materials repeatedly and if those materials aren’t rated for it, or if the base wasn’t built correctly, you’ll start seeing cracks within three to five years.
The fix isn’t complicated, but it has to be done right from the start. Masonry materials need to exceed 5,000 psi compressive strength. Stone veneer needs to be frost-proof, not just weather-resistant. The sub-base needs to be compacted gravel at the right depth to prevent frost heave which is especially relevant in Brookhaven because the soil here is clay-heavy, meaning it holds water and moves when it freezes. We build to those standards on every project. It’s not an upgrade. It’s how outdoor kitchens in this climate need to be built if they’re going to last.
If you want your outdoor kitchen ready for Memorial Day weekend, you need to start the conversation in January or February at the latest. Outdoor masonry work can’t be done safely below 40°F or in wet conditions, which means the real build window in Brookhaven runs from roughly April through October. That’s not a long runway when you factor in permit processing time through Brookhaven Borough’s building department, material lead times, and scheduling.
The planning and design phase can happen any time of year and honestly, winter is the best time to do it. There’s no pressure, no rush, and you have time to think through the design carefully rather than making decisions on the fly once a crew is already on site. Homeowners who reach out in January or February are the ones who are cooking in their new outdoor kitchen by July. The ones who call in May are usually looking at an August or September completion at the earliest, depending on where the schedule falls.
Yes and this comes up a lot with Brookhaven properties specifically. Most of the homes here were built in the postwar era, which means the lots are modest by today’s suburban standards. A typical Brookhaven backyard isn’t going to fit a sprawling outdoor living complex, but it absolutely has room for a well-designed outdoor kitchen that functions exactly the way a larger one would.
The key is designing around the actual space rather than starting with a template and trying to shrink it. We look at your specific yard dimensions, traffic flow, where the sun hits, where water drains and design from there. A 10-by-12-foot footprint can include a built-in grill, prep counter, storage, and a side burner without feeling cramped if the layout is thought through properly. Some of the most functional outdoor kitchens we’ve built in this part of Delaware County are on modest lots. Smaller doesn’t mean limited. It just means the design has to be smarter.
The most honest answer is the way the work is structured. A lot of contractors in this space either run a showroom model where they sell you equipment and send someone to install it or they manage a project by pulling in different subcontractors for each phase. Both of those approaches create gaps: in communication, in accountability, and in the quality of the finished product.
We operate as one team. The same crew handles site prep, masonry, utility connections, and finish work. There are no handoffs between subcontractors, no days where nothing happens because one trade is waiting on another. Renato Spennato is personally involved in projects not as a salesperson who disappears after the contract is signed, but as the person accountable for what gets built. For Brookhaven homeowners making a $20,000–$35,000 investment in their property, that accountability matters. We’re also based in Aston, which shares a direct border with Brookhaven so when we say we know this area, we mean it in the most literal sense possible.
