It took Jared and Tiffany Marshall nearly a decade, but their backyard is finally something they can be proud of. To be honest, it’s something Universal Studios or Disneyland would be very proud of.
On their sixth-of-an-acre property in Lakeside, the husband-and-wife duo, along with their 13-year-old daughter Madison, turned a mostly dirt backyard into something spectacular: a homage to Hollywood.
Their backyard celebrates some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters, from 1975’s “Jaws” to 2015’s “Jurassic World.”
The entrance to Jared and Tiffany Marshall’s backyard hints at the Hollywood homage that awaits. (Ariana Drehsler / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Just beyond the glimmering swimming pool and the Margaritaville-themed outdoor bar is an arched gate emblazoned with the words “The Backlot.” The gate is flanked by bushes tall enough to hide what lies ahead. Walk past that gate, and you’re transported to a different world.
There’s a menacing animatronic shark, a red carpet lined with Hollywood posters, an outdoor movie screen and sound-triggered robotic dinosaurs. Oh, and a working gravity rollercoaster in the middle of the Jurassic jungle. Inside the Jurassic-themed visitor center nearby, classic video games await the young and the young at heart.
The couple’s yard was recently featured in the annual Lakeside Garden Tour, where Jared and Tiffany happily guided visitors through their expansive backyard, pointing out every detail of Jared’s handiwork.
He works in utilities but has a background in graphic design, so every inch of the yard has his artistic touches, from the dinosaur eyes peeking out of fences to the “Jaws”-themed outdoor movie theater. Even the font used on the “Jurassic World” arch is impressively accurate.
And they’re not done. There’s still the side of a hill that will soon be a tribute to the Indiana Jones franchise.
Visitors to the Marshalls’ backyard will encounter Hollywood-themed details, such as a director’s chair and a Universal Studios clap board. (Ariana Drehsler / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
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Visitors to the Marshalls’ backyard will encounter Hollywood-themed details, such as a director’s chair and a Universal Studios clap board. (Ariana Drehsler / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
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It all started with dirt
In 2015, they wanted to buy a house with a yard that has ample size and privacy.
“We needed property that gave us backyard privacy, and it was either going to be Alpine, where we were living at the time, or here. My parents, brother and cousin live here, so we came back to where our family was,” said Tiffany, 44, who added that she’s lived in the neighborhood on and off since she was 9 years old.
The house they found in the Eucalyptus Hills neighborhood of Lakeside was built in 1956. It was, for the most part, turnkey. They made cosmetic changes to the 1,500-square-foot house itself, but the yard needed work.
A lot of work.
There was a pool with a decent-sized patch of grass nearby, but just past that, there was dirt.
A lot of dirt.
In their new home, Jared, the creative half of the duo, had envisioned building a backyard with a Western theme.
“But the people who lived here before spent most of their money on the pool and these palm trees,” Jared, 40, said, pointing to the band of palm trees that dot the property. There’s a pygmy palm here, a sago palm there and queen palms everywhere.
“The second we saw the palm trees, we realized that we couldn’t really pull off the Western-themed yard.”
Jared slowly pivoted. When he came up with a Hollywood theme, did he immediately start with the project?
“First, he had to get Mom’s approval,” Madison chimed in with a chuckle. “She’s like the HOA.”
“I either approve or decline it,” Tiffany said, laughing. “No, seriously, Jared has the vision, and then I will add my piece or Maddie will suggest something, and then we as a group will decide that, yeah, that looks good. But Jared is definitely the visionary.”
The movie “Jaws” was the inspiration for the outdoor movie theater in Tiffany and Jared Marshall’s backyard in Lakeside. (Ariana Drehsler / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Movie night
The Marshalls’ Hollywood-themed backyard traces its roots to Jared’s desire for a place where friends and family could gather and watch movies.
“I wanted an outdoor movie theater,” said Jared, whose taste in movies skews toward blockbusters, especially those directed by Steven Spielberg.
“Plastic chairs on the lawn around an outdoor screen — that’s really how it started,” he said. “It was just us sitting around to watch a movie.”
They built a small play area, complete with a swing set, for Madison in the far right corner, but a Home Depot purchase — a 9-foot-tall Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton statue — soon unleashed what would become “The Backlot.”
Dinosaur sculptures can be seen near the miniature gravity roller coaster in Tiffany and Jared Marshall’s backyard in Lakeside. (Ariana Drehsler / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
“It was the first themed piece of material we bought,” Jared said. “And then from that, we decided to go full ‘Jurassic Park’ and then switch the theater over to a ‘Jaws’ theme.”
Then, little by little, Jared’s ideas moved from sketches to reality. But it really wasn’t until the pandemic when he went full throttle on the Hollywood backlot concept.
“A lot of the big changes happened during COVID,” Jared said. “You know, you have more time to look at things and, well, you just had more time, period.”
Many spouses play golf on weekends. Jared tinkers with the yard.
“I just actually got my bachelor’s degree in December, so I was constantly studying,” said Tiffany, who’s been a registered nurse for 21 years. “He’d come in and say, ‘I’ll see you in six hours,’ and then he’d disappear. It all worked out.”
‘Trial and error’
To say Jared is obsessed with the backyard would be an understatement. But it’s the good kind of obsession.
“A lot of what you see is me obsessing over things and trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t — a lot of trial and error,” he said. “This yard right now, it’s like the 3.0 version.
“There’s been a lot of redoing of things over and over till it gets just right to where we want it. And then the second that’s over, I’m already on to the next thing. I usually have about three or four things in my mind that I want to knock out. And the second I get closer to finishing those things, there’s another three or four things that I want to do.”
Next up is getting rid of a trampoline in the “Jurassic World” part of the yard and replacing it with a water feature. And then the “Indiana Jones” project will begin to take shape.
Has the HOA — er, Tiffany — approved those plans?
“Ha!” Jared said. “But I think there’s now a level of trust.”
“Yes, most definitely,” Tiffany said. “He spends a lot of time thinking about the plans, so it’s never really a surprise.”
Jared added: “If I have an idea, I’ll kind of run it through my head. I’ll look at materials. I’m pretty stingy with what I spend, so I’ll look at prices for a while, and then if I know what I want, I’ll start sketching it out, as far as how to build it.”
As much as he likes the idea phase of the process, he said it’s actually not what he loves the most.
“For me, it’s the actual building,” said Jared, who has a bachelor’s degree in graphic design and once ran his own graphic design business. “I like the idea that you can have an idea in your head first, and then comes the part where you have to find a way to build it. It may seem impossible. It may be difficult. It may take longer than you thought, but every single time I’ve built something, there’s a sense of satisfaction that comes with it when I finally finish it.”
Jared Marshall helps his daughter, Madison, by holding the roller coaster while she gets in. The gravity roller coaster is a part of the Marshalls’ Hollywood-themed backyard in Lakeside. (Ariana Drehsler / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
‘It’s over the top’
For all the fuss surrounding their backyard, what does 13-year-old Madison think about all of it? Is she a movie fanatic like her dad?
“No, not at all,” said Madison, who said she prefers singing and crocheting to movies. She’s sung the national anthem at the Lakeside Rodeo a couple of times and is the reigning Teen Miss Lakeside 2025.
“If you look back here, it’s pretty crazy, but honestly, I show pictures of the backyard to my friends, and they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, you have a roller coaster coaster in your backyard? What the heck?’
“It doesn’t really faze me anymore because I see it every day,” she said. “I grew up with it, so it’s just, you know, the backyard.”
For Eileen Neumeister, who’s been organizing the Lakeside Garden Tour since 2018, the Marshalls’ yard brought a breath of fresh air to the annual event, which Lakeside residents can attend and showcases anywhere from five to six neighborhood gardens.
“When I first saw it, I thought, ‘This is over the top. People are really going to enjoy it’,” Neumeister said. “Yes, it’s not strictly about the plants. It’s about the space and enjoying the space. It’s just such a fun place. The Marshalls have such tremendous imagination, and they love having the neighbors come. Each year, we get a huge response when people find out the Jurassic house is on the tour. It’s pretty special.”
“This is our third year being on the garden tour,” Tiffany said. “And many people have told us that the first thing they want to know is: ‘Is the Jurassic house going to be on the tour?’”
Tiffany admits their backyard isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. She knows many on the garden tour “didn’t quite get why our yard was on a garden tour.”
They spend hours working on the yard, snipping here and there, trimming trees and pulling weeds. But she knows theirs is not what many would consider the traditional garden for a garden tour. For what it’s worth, every faux fauna in their back yard is surrounded by lush flora, from heat-loving agaves to towering banana trees to maroon-hued canna lilies.
“We love opening our home up and having people come over here,” Tiffany said. “It’s about the experience for us — and people just enjoying being out here,” so being on the tour seemed like a no-brainer. “I think last summer we hosted 14 different parties between graduations, birthdays and work events.”
For Tiffany, one of the best parts of sharing their back yard with others is the visitors’ initial reaction when they first step foot in the yard.
“They just do not know what to expect,” she said. “We have people that comment on the courtyard,” referring to a beautifully designed Spanish-inspired side patio just beyond the driveway. “They kind of hover, and I always tell them ‘There’s more. You just dipped your toes in the water. There’s more.’
“We started really small a few years ago, so I think what the community has enjoyed is seeing the different changes we make each time that they’re here. Now neighbors refer to us as the dinosaur house or Jurassic house, which is cute.”
The Marshalls are no strangers to hosting parties in their backyard, which includes a tiki-themed outdoor bar built by Jared, shown here with Tiffany and their daughter, Madison. (Ariana Drehsler / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
What’s next?
More than 10 years into their backyard project, Jared’s to-do list hasn’t really gotten any shorter.
“People ask us, aren’t you running out of places to do things in? You would think so, but we’re not. I have ideas that will utilize every square inch,” Jared said with a laugh.
For now, there’s the “Indiana Jones” part of the yard that’s going to be built just up the hillside. Jared has plans for a temple and an Indiana Jones figurine dangling from the top. There will be rocks and “perhaps even a moving boulder,” he said with a smile. He wants to incorporate a water slide from that area into the pool.
“I still have to figure that out,” he said.
“And consult the HOA!” Madison said, looking at Tiffany.
In the short-term, though, the summer season’s first outdoor movie night beckons. They’ve come a long way since those early days of a projector sitting on a small table surrounded by plastic chairs.
Now, the projector sits hidden inside an enclosure meant to replicate a boat in the fictional “Jaws” town of Amity Island. There’s a state-of-the-art sound system. And four Roku streaming devices feed the projector and four TVs across the yard — with an internet signal coming from a Wi-Fi extender just behind the Margaritaville-themed bar.
The first outdoor movie of the season?
“’Indiana Jones,’ of course,” Jared says.
Originally Published: June 28, 2025 at 6:00 AM PDT