The wooden stairway leading up to Steven and Naomi Lee's hilltop home in Kane'ohe was slowly rotting away.

Add to that their nonsensical entry with a patio sliding door for a front door, and a drab concrete white patio that constantly puddled with the Windward rains.

To top it off, the design of their spacious backyard did little to showcase their magnificent views of Kane'ohe Bay and the Ko'olau Range.

In a word, the property was "needy," said Steven Lee, 45, a memorial counselor at Hawaiian Memorial Park Cemetery.

The Lees' desperate cries were answered by Home & Garden Television's popular show "Landscapers' Challenge," which helped the Lees transform their outdoor nightmare into a dreamy Asian-inspired oasis. The episode featuring their makeover will air sometime next year on HGTV.

The show takes three professional landscapers who face off to find out whose plan will best meet the outdoor design challenge and win the homeowner's approval. The winner installs the plan, and cameras document the process and the owner's reaction.

The designers who vied for a chance to work their magic were Greg Culver of Pua Lani Landscape Design Inc., Stephen Haus of Haus Associates and Gary Howard of Pacific Land Design.

So who won? Since the show involves a competition, HGTV officials asked that readers wait until the episode airs to find out. While there was only one winner, the Lees said they were impressed with all three design proposals.

"But I think what (the winning designer) did was he took it a step further and he actually proposed utilizing an unused portion of our yard and adding a hot tub," said Naomi Lee, 35, who owns her own wedding design business.

The couple's renovation journey began in January of last year, when Naomi Lee applied for the show online and the couple sent in a video to pitch their project.

"I think what won it for us was, going back to the drainage problem with our patio, it always puddled when it rained, and Steven would have to use this big squeegee to squeegee the water off of the concrete patio, so Steven concocted this character (for the video), 'Squeegee Man,' " Naomi Lee said, laughing.

In the video, Steven Lee played a kung-fu-like superhero wearing an aloha shirt and shorts, yardman hat and rubber boots, and holding a squeegee; Naomi Lee played the damsel in distress, calling for Squeegee Man to come to her rescue.

Their creativity paid off. Soon after, the couple received a call that they were selected.

The Lees went into the project with a budget of $35,000 and a simple wish list to improve about 10,000 square feet of their property: They asked for a new stairway leading up from their driveway to their home, a defined entryway and a patio with proper drainage.

But what should have been a three- to four-month project stretched into more than a year.

"There were a lot of bumps in the road that we couldn't control," Naomi Lee said.

The biggest setback happened when custom-made stone pieces they ordered from the Philippines were stuck on a barge at a dock for several months because of a longshoremen's dispute. The project stalled again because of storms last spring that lasted more than 40 days.

"But it was well worth (the wait) because we're very, very happy with the outcome," Naomi Lee said while standing in her new yard as a film crew taped the final results for the show.

'SECRET GARDEN'

When "Landscapers' Challenge" producer Kelly Weinhart first saw the Kane'ohe property, she immediately saw its potential, she said. "I thought it turned out beautifully. It felt so much bigger when I stepped onto it in the end, and I thought there was a nice flow."

"Now we have this secret garden," Steven Lee agreed.

Aside from a visually appealing outdoor space, the Lees are pleased that their concerns were addressed.

The landscaper replaced their rotting wooden stairway with a wider wooden stairway and a fresh coat of greenish-gray paint to match their home's exterior color. The stairs lead up to a red, sage-green and stained wooden entry gate resembling a Japanese temple.

The gate structure mirrors their defined entrance area, complete with solid wood double doors and glass side lights. The changes met with the couple's desire for a Zen-like theme.

What was once a boring concrete patio fronting their entryway is now an elegant area of custom-made artificial stone pieces, with a waterfall and pond capped with benches fashioned out of faux stones. Their patio has also been graded for drainage, so puddling is no longer a problem.

The patio leads to a tropical backyard, lush with laua'e fern, ti leaves, red torch ginger, pink and green anthuriums, and bromeliads.

There's also an added bonus.

"When we met the designers for the first time and we showed them the yard and what our problems were, I specifically took everyone to this corner of the yard just to say, 'This wasn't on our list of needs, but I just wanted to show that to you and this view we have'," Steven Lee said.

The winning designer proposed a hot tub; the Lees were game. "It has one of the best views of the house," Naomi Lee said.

The couple said the total transformation is more than they imagined it could be.

"It was a lot of fun despite everything," Naomi Lee said. "We learned a lot through the process, and we couldn't be happier with the results."

Reach Zenaida Serrano at zserrano@honoluluadvertiser.com.