July 2003

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Because this project is a true rarity: a diving/lap lane vinyl-liner freeform pool. Because the pool’s functional duality carries over into its shape — geometric yet radiused. Because the deep end can be sectioned off with safety ropes and floats when those unfamiliar with the pool visit. Because the low plantings ensure an unobstructed view of the pool from the home. Because an aluminum estate fence surrounds the pool, retaining the backyard’s feeling of openness. Because acetone was used to wipe the print off the patterned liner to create a solid lap line on the bottom of the shallow ends. Because the spillover spa is an octagon, mirroring the curved yet angled shape of the pool.

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hen Artie Edwards was approached by a former competitive swimmer about building a pool, the client knew he wanted something that would make a splash.

“He didn’t want a plain rectangular pool,” says Edwards, pool contractor for the project and president of Arthur Edwards Pool & Spa Centre in Miller Place, N.Y. “He wanted something with curves and angles, something unique.”

Along with a landscape designer, Edwards created a 70-foot-long-by-30-foot-wide lap/diving pool. The diving well, which sits in the center of the pool at a 45-degree angle, measures 18 feet wide, 30 feet long and 8 feet deep. “We twisted the diving well to save on the width of the pool,” Edwards says.

He also created built-in ease of operation for the busy homeowner, who’s now a surgeon, and his family, which includes two young sons. “With the turning of two valves, you can run the pool or spa by itself, spill the spa into the pool, drain the water out of the spa through the filter back into the pool and fill the spa with fresh water from the pool,” he says.

Although the essentially flat yard presented no access issues or design challenges, it still wasn’t a slam-dunk for Edwards. “When you build on a hill or in a yard with an elevation change, you’re able to get creative,” he says. “The hardest projects to come up with an interesting design and layout for are in a flat yard — a ‘ball field,’ as we call it.”

— Rhonda J. Wilson