Fountain of youth: these newly renovated older pools enticed their owners to fall in love with them all over again - Aqua Scapes

Pool & Spa News, Oct 3, 2003 by Julie Sturgeon

There are three things people can do in a typical pool that was built back in 1975: They can swim, they can play in the water, and they can crouch in a really tight ball on the first or second stair and try pretending it's a sunshelf.

No gushing waterfalls will energize them as they dine in the company of family and friends. No ambling stream will soothe them while they read or contemplate. And no one will ooh and aah at the pool that seems to go on forever because vanishing edges weren't invented back then.

"A worn-out pool doesn't draw people to it. It doesn't feel like a place they want to go to, and that's a shame," says Mike Geremia, co-owner and general manager of Geremia Pools Inc., a Pool & Spa News Top Builder based in Sacramento, Calif. "But when a pool looks inviting, you've just created a whole new environment they do want to live in."

For homeowners who have bigger dreams for their backyards, these things are only a phone call, a contract and a few weeks of construction away.

"New construction starts with a clean slate and produces something from nothing," says Jon Collins, vice president of Sunbelt Pools, a Pool & Spa News Top Builder based in Dallas. "But to take something existing, tie it into the existing motif of the house and yard without making it look like you made huge changes--that's special."

Call him a reviver of dreams: "People sometimes stop short of their dreams," Collins says. "They don't become passionate about it; they just let it die. What if they realize that these things are possible?"

As the following pictorial shows, owners of older pool have rights, too. Here's a peek at how Collins and other top pool designers across the country produced magical results from yesterday's tired pools.

The Ultimate in Natural

Sunbelt Pools

Dallas

One of Collins' favorite projects didn't begin as a pool redo. Instead, an old, ugly waterfeature in the front yard started the ball rolling at this multimillion-dollar home in the Dallas suburbs. "It was poorly conceived, poorly constructed and it just never worked," Collins says. "It was inconceivable that anybody would just leave it there."

To replace what had become a swampy, mosquito-breeding mess, he proposed a 60-foot stream that flowed underneath the driveway and spilled into a lower basin. The homeowners were so enthusiastic about the concept that they commissioned Sunbelt Pools to wrap the whole side of the house in an aquascape consisting of seven distinct areas featuring waterfalls, streams and pools.

Unfortunately, this redesign left the 30-year-old, 400-square-foot pool in the backyard looking older than ever. Add in the fact that these homeowners spent $1.5 million in interior renovations, and the pool area just outside their 20-foot windows became more of a jarring eyesore than an appropriate work of art. "The pool had no focal point, nothing of substance," Collins recalls. "It was just a place to get wet." The similarly nondescript 32-square-foot attached spa also failed to make a statement of its own.

So a year after Collins put the finishing touches on the waterfalls, the homeowners phoned to see if he would bring this final area up to snuff, too. He wanted to create a three-dimensional effect and a relaxing sound. A vanishing edge would accomplish both goals, so Collins tore out the hot tub and one wall of the pool to accommodate the weir and catch basin.

The vanishing edge itself proved to be the biggest challenge. With the series of waterfalls at the side of the house, Collins had carefully orchestrated the audio sensations he wanted throughout the yard. To unleash a forceful, crashing 22-foot-long vanishing edge would be like allowing the proverbial bull into a china shop. Instead, the backyard needed a more lighthearted bubbling. Collins engineered the pool to spill a 3/4-inch sheet of water over the edge, using a 5-horsepower pump. The internal piping he chose, however, can handle a pump as powerful as 10- to 15-horsepower, if this client or future homeowners want a more commanding sound.

Collins broke up the falling water by placing small boulders down the length of the edge. The rocks interrupted the sheeting sound, solidified the yard's natural look and blended with the flagstaff stone coping.

The homeowners had been willing to sacrifice their hot tub for a vanishing edge, but they didn't want to give up hydrotherapy altogether. Collins obliged by introducing a 10-foot-long bench into the pool along with hydrotherapy jets. Now six adults can still sit comfortably and enjoy the water pressure of a spa at the push of a button. "It's a small pool, so they can heat it for just a little more than what it cost to heat the spa," Collins notes. "Six months out of the year, they keep the temperature at 95 degrees and jump it up to around 104 degrees when they feel the need to soak."

To make the experience even more comfortable, Collins replaced the rough pebble surface the homeowners complained about with a smooth-surfaced aggregate finish. This still played off the surrounding rockwork, but was gentler to the touch.