Another wedding, another pool.
Jim Urzendowski knows the routine by now. After hurrying construction on a modest free-form pool for a client’s backyard wedding reception, Urzendowski was commissioned again when the homeowner moved.
With the new project well under way, he found that the pool needed to be finished within two weeks to play host to yet another exchange of vows.
“I thought he was joking,” recalls the president of the building company. “We had to push hard with two weeks to go, but at least we didn’t have to work into the night. [By the end], we had everything looking like a million bucks.”
The finished product is a beautifully stamped deck and sprawling vinyl-liner design that stretches nearly 80 feet across the property.
Space jam
Urzendowski soon realized his client’s new backyard wasn’t long on aesthetics.
“The house had sat for so long that [the yard] was all weeded in,” he says. “There was a really narrow lap pool there, and it was shabby to say the least.”
The stately Midwestern home demanded a pool of similar scale. The client, meanwhile, wanted a design that would complement the house, and decided that paisley-shaped curves on either side would fit the bill.
Urzendowski had to work within a set of wrought-iron trellises in back, which housed grape vines and led to a sitting area. With this layout in mind, he incorporated within the pool a vanishing-edge waterfall that offers a unique view from below.
View from below
Urzendowksi had long wanted to try a vanishing-edge design on a vinyl-liner pool. His client embraced the idea almost immediately.
“He wanted to utilize the lower part of the yard anyway for the sitting area, so it worked out great,” Urzendowski says.
The feature was built with a concrete vanishing edge that attached to the pool’s polymer walls. Using striking blue and gold tile, Urzendowski created an eye-catching backdrop beneath the sheeting water. The vault is concrete as well.
The rest of the pool features a gray base, with an ash-colored liner and gray shading for the handrails, steps and acrylic spa. Here, the designers were aiming for a Pebble-tec look, Urzendowski notes.
In addition, his crew installed extensive fiberoptic lighting and a Compool system so the homeowner could control the lights, waterfall, heating and cleaner remotely.
Fortunately, Urzendowski managed to complete the job in time for the client’s reception. Among a slew of wedding tents and scores of guests, the newly minted pool was, once again, a centerpiece.
“It was quite the show,” he says. “[The project] exceeded all expectations.”
