hen you build pools for a living, you don’t want to shy away from a challenge in your own backyard.
That’s why David Klohr decided to scale the steepest mountain of his career right in his own backyard: a fiberglass pool surrounded by 100 tons of artificial rock outcroppings.
“When you do your own, you double-do everything,” says the president of Smart Pools in Las Vegas. “I wanted to do something unique in fiberglass [to] separate us from the competition. There’s nothing I’ve ever seen with these rocks and landscaping in fiberglass.”
Although his showroom already had two working pools and several waterfalls and spas, he knew this would become his most-used show pool. So he decided to make it his most popular.
He started with a standard-shaped fiberglass pool shell and a standard fiberglass swim spa. Then he added the finishing touches: 100 tons of artificial rock, along with numerous tropical plants and a custom gel coat color on the fiberglass shells.
But three major problems stood in the way of Klohr’s vision of paradise:
• Fiberglass shells aren’t designed to support the weight of so much artificial stone
• His small “L” shaped yard confined his design
• A busy street bombarded the backyard with traffic noise
Sound control
Klohr knew the right design would solve all three problems. But he had to wedge his little piece of paradise into a backyard 200 feet wide and only 27 feet deep. “It was a tough yard because the pool sits about 5 feet off the patio. I drew and drew to get the design I wanted,” he recalls.
What he ultimately came up with was a plan for a pool on the long side of the “L” and a 15-jet swim spa on the short side. Klohr then designed a “fiesta kitchen” where the two sides meet. “You walk out and have this Southwest-style kitchen. Then, to the right, you have the big pool; to the left, the swim spa.”
Klohr’s plan to add generous artificial rock outcroppings around the water would not only give him the tropical look he desired, but also shield the yard from traffic noise. For even more privacy, he designed a cave that could be entered from the pool or deck.
“I was trying to achieve something where you’re in your own little world,” Klohr says of the overall design.
To add to that feeling, Klohr decided he’d cover the rockwork with moving water. “There are cascade waterfalls, grotto-type waterfalls and water that comes out of the rocks like a spring,” he says. “The entire rear and sides feature water.”
The water, and therefore noise volume, would be adjustable on all 10 waterfalls. That way, the water could roar over a loud party or trickle to create a serene atmosphere for the quiet couple or solitary reader.
The 13-by-20-foot kitchen also would contribute to the goal of creating an insulated world. “The back is solid, which masked out the street noise,” Klohr says. “Then it’s open on three sides,” with one open side facing the house, another the pool and the last side facing the spa.
Placed directly outside the home’s kitchen, this outdoor version would be a true extension of the indoor space with a full bar, barbecue, television and potbelly stove.
A rain curtain falling from the roof of the outdoor kitchen into the pool would bridge the two together. “The rain curtain does a couple things: When you’re barbecuing and it gets to 115 degrees, it cools down the kitchen. And it’s really neat to look through when you look out to the pool,” Klohr says.
For the final tropical touch, Klohr decided to special-order the shells with a terra-cotta gel coat to give the water its green appearance.
He would then plant a variety of palms to create a canopy over 60 percent of the yard. “It’s a southern exposure, so it really helps us out,” he says. Annual color and even desert plants add to the yard’s lushness.
A tight spot
Of course, drawing his plan out on paper was one thing. Making it work for construction crews — especially in such a tight yard — was quite another.
That’s why Klohr really had to get creative when it came time for work to begin. For one thing, he had to change the order of construction. “Everything on this job had to go backwards,” he says.
For example, normally Klohr puts the plants in last. This time, though, the crews had to bring the 5-to-6-ton Canary Island palm trees in before construction could move forward. “These trees need 6-by-6-by-6-foot holes for the root systems,” Klohr says. “There’s no way you could dig the holes for them after the pool was built” because the yard would be so tight. Crews didn’t have the access for machinery, so they used a crane on the rear street to carry the trees over the house and put them in place.
Next, the excavator dug the hole for the pool, and the crane put the shell in place. “It was all hand work from there,” Klohr says.
The skewed construction schedule had the biggest impact when it came time for the rockwork to begin. With the shell already in place, crews had to accommodate an important characteristic of fiberglass pools: They generally need to remain filled to retain their shape. In this case, however, crews needed to put scaffolding in the pool to do the rockwork, so keeping the pool and swim spa full wasn’t an option.
Klohr figured out another way to retain the shell’s shape. The workers laid the 4-by-4-inch wooden beams across the pool’s width. Spaced about every 6 feet, the beams were wrapped in carpet, to avoid scratching the shell. The crews could then place the scaffolding posts between the beams. They would have to rearrange the wooden beams a couple of times throughout construction to accommodate the scaffolding posts.
Klohr also knew that working over and around the empty shells could result in two stained shells. “You have to be careful of all the droppings and stains so they don’t get into the pool,” he observes.
So his staff masked the entire surfaces of the pool and spa. “We did it with plastic, tape and carpet,” he says. “We laid carpet on the bottom, then plastic over it, then we taped it. It takes a lot of time, then it’s constantly getting torn because they’re working in there with scaffolding.”
Hard as rock
Prepping the shells for the rockwork may have been arduous, but the hard work didn’t truly begin until crews started building the rock. The preparation and rockwork combined took about five weeks.
At this point, everything had to be done by hand; there wasn’t even room for a concrete pump. “It was all wheel-barrowed and hand-laid because you really couldn’t get in there,” Klohr says.
First, they had to pour the concrete footing system to support the rock. Each rock would straddle two footings: one directly against the vessel and another set several feet back to hold the back of the rock. The crews poured the footings 3 feet deep to native soil.
The workers then formed the steel cages in the shape of the rocks, applied paper-and-wire lath and coated them with five layers of concrete. They added a waterproofing compound in the concrete for the last two layers. Then they went meticulously over each “rock” with 12-by-12-inch stamps to give them a ruddy surface. The grooves and cracks were hand-carved.
The craftsmen built the rock to hang slightly over the swim spa and pool. To anchor the rock to both, crews drilled holes in the lip of the shells and doweled the bottom of each rock through the pool and into the footings with No. 4 rebar. This arrangement still allowed some independent movement between the pool, rock and footings.
They then painted the rock with six colors to achieve the right coloration. Klohr provided the craftsmen with rock samples from southern Utah, Las Vegas’ Red Rock Canyon and Sedona, Ariz., to show which hues he wanted.
Finally, they sealed the joint between rock and pool with a silicone caulk to prevent water from absorbing underneath the rock.
Mission accomplished
With everything finished, did Klohr’s plan work? Did he have the best show pool he could?
One customer certainly thinks so: He wants a duplicate. “He just wants the environment,” Klohr says. Others borrow elements for their own pools. “They might say, ‘I like that cave’ or ‘I want that rain curtain.’”
Klohr also takes two to three customers a week to see it — at their request. “I run this picture in my advertising and everybody wants to see it,” he says. “People see it in the ad and they say, ‘I want that.’ You put it with 50 pictures and they put that in the top two or three every time.”
