Come together: thirty years ago, a landscape architect reached out to the pool industry

Pool & Spa News, June 6, 2003

June 6, 2003

Building a well-rounded backyard with a pool requires several disciplines: a knowledge of plants, an understanding of how to organize a space and traffic patterns, and the ability to design and build a pool. Nowadays, more and more builders either align themselves with related professionals or diversify their own knowledge base--or both. But three decades ago, an Atlanta landscape architect observed that more homeowners wanted well-designed recreation areas. To make this work, he figured, different industries would have to come together. At an NSPI meeting in 1972, he shared his big idea with the local pool industry, shown in the following article from Pool News, as this magazine was then called.

Oct. 16, 1972

Pool buyers today want "recreation areas" rather than just pool areas, a landscape architect told an audience at the Region 2-Southeastern meeting in Stone Mountain, Ga., Oct. 5-7.

And, said Dan Franklin, Atlanta, this trend requires greater coordination between pool builders, landscape architects and nurserymen. The first steps in this direction, he added, have already been taken. The national architects' society has contacted the National Swimming Pool Institute and the American Nurserymen's Association and the foundations are being laid, he said.

He warned, however, that plans are still in the preliminary stage and that even those steps that have been taken have not yet drifted down to all segments of architecture.

The trend to selling a complete recreation area, with pools as an integral part, said Franklin, means that there is now a need for nurserymen and pool builders to have a better understanding as to the types of live plants that are best for use around these recreation areas.

He said he feels so strongly that architects need to know more about plants that he has recently joined the Georgia Nurserymen's Association and attends their meetings whenever possible.

With the trend toward selling recreation areas, there is an opportunity for the builder, working in conjunction with the landscape architect, to sell more elaborate decking as well as shrubbery and plants, said Franklin.

"Sell the prospect a complete package, wherever possible. If they won't buy it, at least plan for all the things they will probably want to add later. Here, the architect can be of assistance and you'll be doing your customers a favor by suggesting that they spend a few dollars more in mapping out a complete package when they are buying only a pool, even though they don't plan to spend that much money at the beginning. Tell them that for a small amount more, they can at least have the plans drawn and ready when they want to make the additions," he said.

People who buy pools only and do not include the trappings for a complete recreation area eventually finish the job, he said. In many cases, he added, they spend more after the pool is finished than they would have originally.

"We all need to start working closer together," he said.