A friend's house was designed by an architect to be his own house, about
8 years ago, until he sold it last year.

It has all kinds of gadgets, including a generator hard wired in, solar
panels in the back yard, alarm installed when the house was built,
Rinnai hot water (that I didn't understand), two big breaker boxes, only
half full but still with 45 breakers total,

Probably some garden faucets were hiding behind bushes, but the one on
the patio was a pipe, almost an inch in diameter that came out of the
wall one inch and then turned downwards. That part was 4 or 5 inches
long with a ball valve in it. And not the standard garden threads on
the end of that. Despite that there was a garden hose not connected
to but right next to this spigot. (I wish I had looked at the ends of
the hose.)

What was I looking at?

My friend told me she thought she had freeze-proof garden faucets but
she must be totally confused. Her pipes didn't burst last winter, but
future winters may be colder.