The Bay Area home was recently modernized, and the existing pool no longer meshed with the house.
Enter Stefan Thuilot. The designer created a simple, elegant masterpiece befitting the contemporary home.
The new pool includes a sleek raised wood deck, understated perimeter overflow spa, nearly invisible automatic cover and subtly placed diving board.
The showpiece for the 40-by-18-foot pool is the raised wooden deck, which matches with a wood veneer on the house while blending with the nearby oaks.
Elevated 14 inches above the pool coping, the deck is covered in Ipe wood, chosen for its durability and resistance to splintering. This deck provides the main congregation and activity area, with plenty of seating.
Thuilot chose medium blue-gray tile and pebble finish for the pool and spa. He felt a bright aqua would look unnatural, and believes that people aren’t comfortable when they can’t see the bottom.
“Here, the water is still bluish, but it’s dark enough to have those reflective qualities,” he says.
The raised planter walls on either side of the pool are covered in Old Spruce Mountain stone, a ledger also used to veneer the outdoor surface of the home’s fireplace. The pool equipment was concealed behind Ipe panels to the side of the pool.
“I wanted to hide it with plants, but after it was built, I just left it there as it is,” Thuilot says. “It’s somehow a reflection of the decking, and it actually draws a nice end point from the path you walk getting to the backyard area.”
With the pool and yard completed, Thuilot is pleased with its scale.
“The yard seems three times as large now,” he says. “Your eye draws across the pool, across the deck and toward the native hillsides.”
