By Katherine Wang The residence was high on drama, with a sloping cedar-and-copper roof, glass panes, warm wood accents and slender stone columns. The homeowners, meanwhile, were outdoor enthusiasts who enjoyed hiking the property’s trails.

Charged with integrating a spa into the scene, designer Randy Tumber, president of this building firm, set out to create the ideal mountain escape.

The winding way
Tumber determined the property’s rich, woodland surroundings should be the project’s enduring theme. To do this, he would have to neutralize the spa’s appearance.

The home sits above a ravine that slopes downhill for several hundred feet. Rather than a stand-alone spa, Tumber’s installation would sit within a custom-designed, 90-foot stream that feeds into a pair of gentle ponds beside the home. He created the cascades by cutting terraces into the hillside.

But the spa would have to give soakers the best possible view of the house and its landscape. The homeowners chose a round acrylic spa shell, which Tumber mounted inside a masonry foundation that sits atop a concrete slab. It’s faced with river rocks and pebbles and capped with hand-laid coping. The stone comes from a quarry in nearby Wiarton, Ontario.

The result is a spa that appears to sprout directly from the stream bed.

“The hot tub becomes an integral part of the flow of the landscape,” says Tumber, APLD, CLD, CHT. “The stream is the connecting link that weaves together the entire project.”

A set of rock steps originates from the spa, carries over the stream and onto a flagstone terrace that attaches to the house. The terrace is flanked by the aforementioned ponds, with goldfish and water lilies.

Water also flows around the dramatic columns — which are the exposed footers of the house. In sunlight, the rays bounce off the water’s surface to create a “dancing” effect inside the home.

Tumber incorporated woodsy material — ornamental grasses, paper birch white pine and fragrant bayberry — to soften the rockwork on the home and spa. Red sumacs, day lilies, spreading yews, ferns and burning bushes (dense, flat-topped deciduous shrubs with scarlet foliage) lend color, shape and scent.

No two stones alike
The home itself featured extensive rockwork. And Tumber wanted to reflect that in the spa’s design. So he used similar-looking stacked stone and flagstone from a rock quarry on the terrace, as well as the spa steps and coping.

The larger boulders were extracted from Niagara Escarpment, a rock shield that separates Ontario and New York, and through which the Niagara River flows. Different layers of stratification mean each rock is unique in appearance. Some carry horizontal stripes of gray or black while others have been worn down by erosion, resulting in smooth as well as pockmarked surfaces.

“[Between the coloring, shape and moss], the stones have a presentation all their own,” Tumber says.

Randy Tumber