t’s been said that good aquascape designers are a lot of things: listeners, creators, problem-solvers. But they’re also something else — translators.
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On this design, the pool sits on the middle level of the irregularly terraced backyard. A raised bond beam supports the small top tier. Sheet waterfalls come from the raised hot tub and, for added cost, out of the raised brick wall.
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What else would you call someone who takes clients’ needs (stated and unstated) as well as their tastes, preferences and property requirements, and translates them into functional artwork?
Take, for instance, our inground-pool clients’ backyard. Broken up into three small, irregularly shaped terraces, its flat areas are already used by items the clients don’t want to move: an existing patio near the house and playground equipment off to the side. Plus, they weren’t exactly offering up the most generous budget.
Ron Coker Jr., vice president of Master Pools by Artistic Pools in Atlanta, took these challenges and turned them into a two-tiered, freeform aquascape, featuring brickwork to tie it into the existing hardscape.
The design came in over budget, at $65,920. That’s excluding a wish list that would add approximately $17,000 to the cost. But given the site, Coker figured he could do it for no less.
You can tell just by looking at this site that it’s a pretty tough one.
The multiple levels and slope considerations that we had to deal with presented one of the biggest challenges. It’s a tight site with three levels. The homeowners didn’t want to change the first level at the house. And they didn’t necessarily want to move the playground equipment, which was on the flattest area in the yard. So we needed to create a little more flat area.
Without demolishing the entire patio on the lower level for the pool, the only place would be on the second level. There was a subtle slope to that second level, and really not enough room to put a pool with any focused decking, unless we were to demolish the middle wall.
How did you work around these issues?
We wanted to use the topography and elevations to our advantage. We liked a natural environment, something that blends into the existing topography rather than trying to force something in that would not fit.
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| To buy extra patio space, designer Ron Coker Jr. pushed the pool to the back of the middle tier. This way, the front portion of the tier and the top level could all act as deck. |
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So we demolished the middle wall, giving us two elevations. We then excavated the pool and put in a freeform design that complemented the existing topography. We came in with a 2-foot-high wall to justify the elevation change, and used the beam of the pool as the footer for the wall by beefing up one side of the pool beam.
Since we had an elevation change, we elevated the spa to the third level, and married the wall that’s on the pool beam into the spa.
As an option, we could come back with a couple of extra sheet waterfalls out of the 2-foot-high wall, so there were three different moving water effects — one from the spa spilling into the pool, and two others emitting from the 2-foot-high wall into the pool.
The third level, which is at the same elevation as the spa, becomes an overlook level or an upper seating level. We thought it might be nice to incorporate a little fireplace or chiminea up on that level, giving you a place to sit when you get out of the spa. If it’s a little chilly, you build a fire and have some warmth up there.
Your bid includes a limestone spill stone from the spa. ...
It’s a cut limestone weir so that the water spilling from the spa into the pool has a nice, clean-breaking sheet. In our area, it’s the best material for a spill stone.
You said the playground area was the only flat space. Was that the first area where you’ve wanted to put a pool?
Probably my first choice would be on the lower level, next to the house. That would have required demolishing everything that was there, but it would have married the pool into the house and created an extension of the house.
My second choice would’ve been where the play equipment is. It would have been a lot less expensive.
Then the third choice would’ve been where we put it, which provided the most unique challenge because you have the slope to work with. But by detaching the pool from the house, you can actually isolate the pool area from the play area and the lower patio with a fence, and it’s a little safer.
And it gives you a backdrop, almost inviting you up to that third level. It kind of pulls you up there.
You were working with a much smaller budget than you're used to. How did you deal with that?
For us, the budget was a bigger challenge than the topography. In our company, we don’t design to budget. We design what we think is best and go from there.
For this project, we had the initial budget for the pool and everything to get it up and running. Then we broke out all the optional items, like the in-floor cleaning system. The clients can pick and choose what’s most important to them.
We blew the budget, but we wanted to stick with materials that weren’t really expensive, so we opted for a patterned or stamped concrete. I figured we’d set it in 2-by-2-foot squares set at a 45-degree angle and then put a slate texture to it, so it mimics cut stone.
The patterned concrete is a step up from simple broomed concrete, and it marries beautifully with the brick that we used to veneer the wall. It’s about half the cost of the stone we would’ve liked to use.
What color stamped concrete did you use?
We thought of a beige cream with a subtle brown release, or shading. That gives the concrete pattern its depth and texture for the illusion of stone. It’s the most natural of the colors of patterned concrete that we use.
What kind of coping did you have in mind?
It’s a cantilevered, patterned concrete coping, scored into 3-foot sections so it mimics a cut limestone.
What else were you trying to accomplish with this design?
By pushing the pool all the way up to that wall, we’ve gained living area toward the house. So we’re able to focus decking.
To me, if you have a pool with 4 feet of decking all the way around it, for instance, you have useless decking. No one could put a lounge chair on it, no one can really do much to it. It’s just a glorified walkway.
If you push the pool all the way back up against the wall, you take the 4 feet of decking that would have been on the backside of the pool, bring it over to the side closest to the house and you now have 8 feet of usable space.
Then you have steps to get to the upper level, but you can still walk all the way around the pool. So we’ve created more useable space.
Why did you choose a freeform shape?
We just thought that the freeform shape complemented the environment.
Originally the site had a curved wall on the bottom tier and a straight wall up top, which we eventually demolished. I liked the curves on the bottom wall, but that one straight wall just didn’t fit with the terrain. So on the new top wall, we mimicked that curvature and just thought that it flowed a little better than if we had something angular that would compete with the curvature of the bottom wall.
What kind of interior finish did you have in mind?
A Tahoe Blue Pebbletec. It’s not as dark as a Black Pearl, so it’s not quite as ominous, and it gives the pool a beautiful lagoon type look, which I think goes well with the freeform shape.
What kind of waterline tile would you use?
Typically, a 6-by-6-inch. There’s a color that blends well with the Pebble Tec called pewter.
To me, the waterline tile should not be a focus. If you do waterline tile right, it should disappear into the pebble and not be visible. That way, the brick wall, the moving water effects, the decking and the shape of the pool become the focal point, rather than the waterline tile that sometimes can be almost gaudy.
Sometimes you look at some pools and see nothing but tile because they have little dolphins or flowers or something on them. That’s a nice way to dress up a very simple pool, but to me, when you’re trying to incorporate everything together, the vertical work and decking of the pool kind of speak for themselves, and the tile should be an underlying factor.
Let’s talk about the sun shelf on the pool.
The clients talked about a beach entry, and the sun shelf is a very similar thing.
The sun shelf is, in essence, the same elevation as the top step coming into the pool. It starts off at about a 3- to 4-inch depth, and then it might slope an inch along the width of it. Then a bench, which sits 18 inches under the water, wraps around the sun shelf. So the little ones have different levels that they can migrate to. They can play on the steps, walk along the bench that connects the steps with the sun shelf, and jump back on the sun shelf.
I found that people like different levels of depth to exist on. And to drop off from the sun shelf directly into the pool is a bit stark, so by wrapping that second step around, you at least step down to bench level and then can ease into the pool.
What other customer needs were you able to satisfy?
Having a shallow-end area where the kids could splash around, and not having a very deep pool seemed very important. A depth of 3 to 5 feet is the national average, so I stuck with that.
They also wanted to isolate the pool with fencing, and we tried to construct a design where a fence might come across and separate the main living area around the house and the play area from the pool area. We did it in such a way that it wouldn’t detract from the beauty of the pool.
How could you put a fence in there without detracting from the beauty of the pool?
Use a black steel that looks like wrought iron. You could look through it so that you see the moving water effects. You can see through the fence, and it invites you back into the pool area.
The clients had a portable hot tub to begin with. Why did you decide to include a new spa along with the pool?
They said they had an existing spa; however, it might be nice to have the spa incorporated into the pool design. Also, a spa spilling into the pool is the easiest way to add a moving water effect. By simply putting the spa at the upper elevation, you have a nice waterfall effect.
And by removing the hot tub, you gain a little more patio space down below in a key area.
What was your favorite thing about this project?
Even though it was a challenge, I like the multiple levels. A perfectly flat backyard is almost boring to work with. I personally like sloped yards or irregular topography to work with, because you can get more creative.
