Hidden Gems: Meet Cara Doyle of Summit Outdoor Living

Today we’d like to introduce you to Cara Doyle.

Hi Cara, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
If you had told me when I was little that this is what my life would look like, I would have stared at you in complete disbelief.

Never in my wildest dreams growing up as a dancer would I have thought I’d be living on a historic dairy farm in the country with chickens and helping my husband run Summit, our outdoor living construction company in Fort Collins. I mean, I always knew I would have two little girls, but to be able to share a stage with them while still performing with a ballet company 40 years later? Nope!

My background and degree is in Art History and Historic Preservation. During the summers, my parents would ship my sister and me from Texas back to our hometown in Maryland to our grandparents’ house. We’d spend those weeks traveling to Williamsburg, VA, Washington, D.C., and various other industrial towns and museums getting our fill of history and learning about how America was built. The rest of my year was spent at our home in Texas, training in the evenings with some of the best in the ballet world at a local ballet academy. On the weekends, my parents would continue to take us to all of the museums, exhibits, and performances that would come through Fort Worth/Dallas.

When we moved to Fort Collins during my sophomore year, I landed at Rocky Mountain High School, wondering if my life had just become a John Denver song. And while I found many friends around a campfire, I also found my tribe at Canyon Concert Ballet (CCB) here in Northern Colorado. CCB gave me a place to continue dancing and performing while attending high school and then college at Colorado State University. I loved my college and dance life, however, I was clueless as to what kind of path I would take as a performer with a degree in Art History and someone who talks too much. So imagine my surprise after leaving a meeting with my advisor and a post-graduation plan to look at becoming a Historic Interpreter (in costume of course) at Colonial Williamsburg and running smack into a boy I knew from high school. Fast forward to today: that boy from high school, Dave, and I have been together for 28 years.

Now it’s a good thing I chose classes in Botany and Horticulture for science, because little did I know, I’d refer back to them after graduation. Dave, who was a Horticulture Business major, was offered a job as a grower at a greenhouse in Denver. My career path shifted from moving back East to explaining how candles were dipped in a tiny house during the Revolutionary War and more towards finding something to do here in Colorado where I could still be near my family, friends at ballet, and Dave. That something became a stint as a Wedding Coordinator and then working for the Fort Collins Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. Turns out Fort Collins is full of history and a lot of people wanted to visit the area and learn more about it. Dave, in the meantime, decided to turn down the offer at the greenhouse and stay in Fort Collins and invest in a mowing company.

After a while, I grew restless with my job, and Dave needed some help in the business. So I went from planning events and explaining the connection between Disneyland and Downtown Fort Collins to tourists to operating a mower and snow blower. See Dave figured if I was going to talk to our clients about landscape maintenance, I had to know what I was talking about. And he was right: off I went to mow and clean up properties and clear snow in the middle of the night.

Our maintenance company, Summit Lawn Care, quickly turned into Summit Lawn and Landscape, and I found myself ordering and planting plants and helping Dave design our jobs. I also quickly learned accounting, payroll, and many other business pieces and parts. Planning and managing a landscaping project wasn’t much different from a wedding. Lots of details, hand-holding, and particular clients. Did I miss going to meetings and wearing pantyhose? Not at all. I was happy as a clam to work from home during the day and dance and perform with CCB at night and on the weekends. Landscaping has since evolved into a design-build construction company and Summit Outdoor Living, where we design and construct custom outdoor spaces for our clients. Colorado residents love being outside.

Once our girls, Calla and India, were born, it seemed only natural that they would join me at the ballet studio as well. I’m sure I performed a run of Nutcracker shows while 8 months pregnant with one of them. Both girls started dancing pretty young, and I’m lucky that they love taking classes and performing as well. CCB has evolved and grown in many ways since I first started in high school.

The recent addition of Michael Pappalardo as Artistic Director has brought many professional opportunities for the dancers and myself. Now I am backstage, using my construction background to create props, my history background to curate period-specific costumes, and my art background to paint masks, clothing, and people’s faces. I have always loved helping people with their makeup for shows, and that has evolved into many amazing photo shoots and performances since.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Life isn’t always a smooth road, but it hasn’t been exactly rough and bumpy. Sure Dave and I have had some obstacles and roadblocks along the way, but nothing we couldn’t overcome. We are very lucky to have our families and amazing support systems close by as well.

On the dancing side, aging out of certain roles and the constant comparison game that there is always someone younger or better than you waiting in the wings to take your place is always a mind game. It’s not super common to find people my age still dancing and performing with a ballet company, so I am very grateful when opportunities to be on stage come my way. It’s a lot less stressful these days, and I make sure to always have fun with it. I get to be on stage with my kids. I have never wanted to be the Sugar Plum Fairy and tend to excel in roles when my personality has a chance to come out. Being in the backstage development of shows has been a whole other fun and new challenge. Getting to be creative is something I crave, and I am lucky to be able to do it in both my work and dance life. Creating art isn’t always necessarily painting realistic still-life masterpieces of fruit and perspective drawings.

Owning a business with your husband isn’t always peaches and cream. Dave and I don’t always agree on everything. Discussions about money and finances always complicate a situation. One minute we could be talking about what is for dinner in the kitchen and then fighting in the office about how we are going to pay for a large piece of equipment the next. Covid was also a challenge, but trade industries had a tough time attracting new employees in the years leading up to Covid. While we were fortunate to see an uptick in business during the pandemic, it wasn’t always smooth sailing. Employees no longer wanted to work or wanted to work in a completely different capacity.

At the same time, our clients were now working from home and would look outside at their spaces and hate what they saw. It was no longer working for their “new situation.” Amid this demand, we struggled to find qualified employees to help us build and install projects. Pair that with supply chain issues and material backorders and it was a challenge to get jobs completed promptly. We found ourselves bouncing around between projects and dealing with the demands of trying to keep up with fewer employees. We are lucky now to have great crews with us who want to create amazing landscapes.

While not all of them started in this green industry, we have a lot of suppliers, vendors, manufacturer reps, and trade organizations that provide great training and help along the way. We value our crews and want them to know this doesn’t have to be a stepping stone to the next thing; it can be a career.

As you know, we’re big fans of Summit Outdoor Living. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
My husband Dave and I own Summit Outdoor Living.

We are a professional design-build company that is known for its innovative custom outdoor living spaces and hardscape construction. From paver and tile patios to pergolas, outdoor kitchens and BBQs, fire features, and pools, we love creating unique landscaped spaces for our clients.

We are Belgard Master Craftsman and are certified with CMHA, the Concrete Masonry and Hardscapes Association, and NALP, the National Association of Landscape Professionals.

We have been in business in Northern Colorado since 1999 and have a diverse and insightful crew who are highly valued and genuine people. We build trust in relationships and respect our clients. We are authentic, present, and accountable.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.summitoutdoorliving.com
• Instagram: @summitoutdoorliving
• Other: @carasmithdoyle – Instagram personal

Image Credits
Chipper Hatter, Shane Hartzheim, and Cara Doyle