The owners of this contemporary Dallas home weren’t exactly sure what to do to enliven their small, ordinary backyard. All they knew was that they wanted an extraordinary waterfeature.
Designer Cheryl Price and her brother, builder Clarke Price, worked closely with landscape architect Naud Burnett II, president of Naud Burnett and Partners Inc. in Dallas, to develop a circular-themed fountain. They wanted to create one that would soften the hard, angled look of the backyard space.
Mission accomplished. The shimmering, opalescent shine from the glass tiling helps this waterfeature serve as a striking focal point, from indoors and out.
“The waterfeature for this home had to be dramatic and unusual,” says Cheryl Price, vice president of Fountainhead Pools Inc. in Dallas. “The clients wanted it to cover the garage wall, so it had to have height.”
The waterfeature is constructed of poured concrete with a Pennsylvania stone veneer. The interior surface of the three-tiered fountain is covered in Bisazza Italian glass mosaic — 3/4-inch-square tiles of blue and green Venetian glass accented with bands of copper.
Unlike other glass tiles, the Venetian variety has a higher uniformity in the size, shape and thickness of each piece. “The way they’re molded, you get a far superior result,” says Clarke Price, president of Fountainhead Pools. “You have straighter grout joints, which are less visible and allow the tile to bring out the beauty of the feature.”
It’s a look akin to stained glass. “Because none of the pieces of tile have truly consistent color, they all have striations of copper and blue … and every piece has a unique and distinctly beautiful pattern all its own,” Cheryl Price says.
Sheets of cascading water from the structure’s six spillways reflect additional glimmers of light. Each of the 2-inch-thick shelves were inserted a foot into the interior. They were leveled to ensure an even water stream into the containment system, which uses a pump to recirculate the water for a continuous current. An overflow system was installed near the garage and tied into an underground draining apparatus.
The calming water draws people to the yard, making it an ideal place for the homeowners to entertain. “It’s just an embracing space,” Cheryl Price says. “It was a wonderful opportunity for us to bring together all of these elements in this way.”
