For this vacation home, an estate ranch in San Diego, it was out with the freeform pool and in with the modern French country oasis. When the pool didn’t quite fit with the homeowners’ vision for their backyard, they hired a landscape architect to come up with a plan for renovation. Also brought in to help was Skip Phillips, president of Questar Pools & Spas, Inc., Escondido, CA. Phillips recommended getting rid of the old pool entirely and installing a new one in a different location on the property.
The old pool was broken up and removed, and a new larger pool—a traditional rectangle with contemporary touches—was built. “We moved the location of the pool out and over to the right to accommodate its significantly larger size so it gave us some space between the house and the pool,” says Phillips. “Also the water level, the deck of the pool, and the house are all on a common plane so it’s a much different line of site than what the clients had before. Our vanishing edge detail takes advantage of the topography and elevation change.”
Phillips also designed a spa that is a perimeter overflow on three sides. The fourth side is a stone wall with a fire feature that creates a row of fire at the flip of a switch. Both the pool and spa have an all-glass tile finish. The decks, planters, and fire pit are finished with French limestone, and floating stepping stones were included off one side of the pool. A Grando in-floor pool cover that deploys from the middle of the pool’s floor was also installed.
“The round river rock surrounding the olive tree along the side of the pool was incorporated by the landscape architect,” says Phillips. “He did the olive tree positioning, but we were aware of this design and planned for that when designing the pool. There is actually an olive tree on either side so they create a beautiful frame for the pool.”
“The pool had to be done simultaneously with the pool house renovation so it took about 9 months to complete,” says Phillips. “We needed many meetings during the planning phase because it was a vast departure from the original vision.”
The price tag was also much higher than if the old pool had simply been renovated, Phillips explains: “If we were to pull the old pool out and install one in ‘like kind’ (without water in transit design), the cost would’ve been about $200,000. But since the new pool is completely different, in a new location, much larger, and includes an automatic pool cover, the cost was $800,000.”
See more projects by Questar Pools & Spas, Inc., Escondido, CA >>
