Work in Progress

With some projects, getting it just right requires designing throughout construction.

The multilevel waterscape seems to sprawl almost as much as the contemporary, resort-like mansion: A 32-foot-long vanishing edge falls toward visitors and appears to drop into a network of three smaller fountains, while a 65-foot-tall spray shoots out of the lake itself.

When guests get to the other side of the property and actually enter the backyard, all they have to do is decide how they’d rather interact with the waterscape. Should they swim, soak in the island spa or hide in the mosaic grotto with piped-in music, tucked behind a sheet waterfall? Maybe they just want to sit in the pool and chat from one of its many benches or swim-up stools attached to the spa. Or just look at the aquascape and listen to the featured band or symphony.

There are worse dilemmas.

Take the one faced by designer/builder Gym & Swim in Louisville, Ky., as it created this extravagant environment in four short months, partially during winter, facing tricky soil conditions and limited space and access. Within the very finite space, the company had to meet a client demand, made during construction, to expand the deck out farther than originally planned — which required adjustments after the ground was broken.

The key to making the project work was staying as elastic as the clients’ demands. This involved making several construction changes along the way, including damming the existing lake to create more surface, constructing an unusual underground vault and changing the deck material to something more movement-friendly. “No matter how well you plan on paper, it doesn’t always work out that way in the field, and you have to improvise and modify, sometimes at the spur of the moment,” says Gym & Swim President Bob Wason.

“But you need to have a group of people who can all of a sudden sit down and brainstorm and say, ‘It doesn’t look like this is going to work. What about this?’ And you have to have [clients] who are pretty flexible, who understand that any time you do something that’s different, there is sometimes going to be trial and error. You just don’t want more error than you have trials.”

To ensure this project’s success, he also had to consult along the way with outside professionals, such as structural engineers, and to constantly communicate with the clients so they understood what was going on and how it would affect the final cost.

All for show
The clients, both physicians, were very open as far as the look of their waterscape went. In fact, Wason says, they only requested falling water, a spa and a depth range of 3-1/2 to 5 feet. They let the professionals handle the details. They just wanted an impressive backyard show.

“Everything is done for huge entertainment,” Wason says. “They have party after party after party. They entertain everything from the opera association to their kids’ private schools. Their parties are not a handful of people — they’re huge numbers.”

Wason and Gym & Swim’s in-house landscape architect, Doug Parker, knew that the waterscape’s look and functionality would have to tie in tightly with the large rectilinear home, especially given the relatively close quarters. So they created a predominantly geometric freeform. The 20-by-50-foot vessel would sit parallel to the home, running long and lean like the residence.

To get the maximum bang for their yardage buck, the designers placed a round island spa inside the pool, with a bridge for access. To maintain a clean look, Gym & Swim finished the pool’s interior in a light aqua aggregate and bordered the pool, spa and steps with the Midwest’s own Bedford limestone. The limestone, hailing from Indiana, has no grain or color variations, giving it a very clean look.

The waterscape also had to cover the 50- to 60-foot elevation change from the house to the lake. With the lake so close, a vanishing edge was a shoo-in. To add dimension, Wason and Parker placed moving water in the front and back of the vanishing edge. The spray shoots water from inside the lake and three small waterfeatures appear to fall from the vanishing edge, but actually run independently. On the side of the pool closest to the house, a symmetrical cluster of five sheet waterfalls create a pyramid effect, progressively becoming larger on either side as they approach the middle sheet, which falls over the mosaic grotto.

The designers used the roof of the grotto to connect traffic from the house to the yard: A walkway goes straight out of the house to the top of the grotto. Then stairs diverge in either direction over the grotto.

Process of evolution
The clients approved the design right away. But little things had to change throughout construction. The first question after design approval was exactly where to put the pool and accompanying bath house. “We moved the pool back and forth across the hillside probably a dozen times before excavation, and we repositioned the bath house several times as well,” Wason says.

The original plan placed the equipment behind the bath house. But the clients wanted more deck area than they had originally requested. “Because of the way they wanted to entertain, the deck area was far more important than the pool,” Wason says. “So the area ended up being much, much larger than initially planned.” As the pool and bath house were moved to accommodate the extra deck, the vanishing edge and fountains below it crept farther and farther away from the equipment room.

Wason and company knew that pushing the large volumes of water such a long distance would put too much strain on the system. As it is, the water would have to travel about 250 feet just to get to the other end of the pool.

It was clear to the builders that the waterscape needed a second equipment location. But, again, space was at a premium. And an equipment pack would hardly look good in the middle of the backyard. “So we excavated and built this vault in the ground that you actually descend [into] underground, like you’re going into a manhole on a street,” Wason says. “Then inside that area was all the mechanical equipment [and controls for] the lower level.” To address the long distances the water had to travel from the main equipment area, the company used 3- and 4-inch plumbing to achieve optimum flow and velocity.

Going with the flow
As the pool shell was being excavated and built, the clients also decided they wanted more deck area behind the vanishing edge, between the waterscape and the lake. “We had literally run out of space,” Wason says. “But it’s a very impressive level to be at because you see all the water falling from the five cascades in the big pool, and you see the 36-foot vanishing edge and the [lower] fountains. As the project came together, she realized how important that was going to be to how she wanted to entertain.” This would also provide easy access to the lake for swimming or paddle boating.

But the pool was butting up against the lake. To create more space, Wason decided to hire a concrete contractor who could actually dam up the lake and buy 15 more feet of space.

He chose a commercial outfit with engineering and high-rise experience to create the 60-foot-long cofferdam. “They actually pushed the earth out into the lake and built it up higher than the water level,” Wason says. They then pumped all the water out from behind the dam, dug footers and poured the concrete steps leading into the lake.

“Then they went back and dug the dirt out so that the water came back up to the steps,” Wason says.

With the deck creeping right to the lake, ground water became a more prominent issue on a project already having to withstand hillside conditions. Wason and the engineers he consulted then made their final major adjustment: Rather than using solid concrete for the deck, they would use interlocking pavers in particularly vulnerable areas.

“Even though we backfilled and compacted on rises, you still have movement on hillsides,” Wason says. “Where we could support it, we used [pilings] down to undisturbed earth on footers and installed quite a bit of steel.” But in those areas where they couldn’t practically reach undisturbed soil, they installed the pavers. “They’re forgiving to movement,” Wason says.

Tight game plan
While some of the design details could be ironed out during construction, Shane Bosemer, Gym & Swim’s vice president and superintendent on this project, had to be much more strict about coordinating the project. Space was limited to store materials and equipment. Additionally, crews and vendors could only enter the area through a 16-foot gate onto an access road across the lake’s main dam.

“We had to run groups in teams,” Wason says. “We couldn’t run everybody in at the same time, otherwise everybody would be stepping on each other.”

So Bosemer had to tightly orchestrate entries so that enough crews could work on the project to finish on time without jeopardizing the access area. Cranes also had to be used in tough-to-reach spots.

With careful coordination, a flexible staff and client, and consultation with outside experts when necessary, the company was able to finish the pool just in time for its debut party.

“We [started up] the pool on Friday, and on Saturday and Sunday they had several hundred people over — probably 500 to 600 the first night,” Wason says.
“This was probably the fastest job we ever completed. We really had our ducks in a row, a lot of really good, devoted people on the job — everybody worked really well as a team. And Mother Nature really cooperated.”

MORE INFORMATION
Who says no spa is an island?
The design team chose to "float" a round spa inside the pool.

Going underground
This Louisville, Ky., pool builder learned a few new tricks while building an underground vault for this project.