- Lance Dickinson, Principal/Landscape Architect
DDLA Design
Dallas - Nick Hauk, President/Founder
Pure Design
Frisco, Texas - Scott Beverly, CEO/Founder
Signature Illumination Designs,
Carrollton, Texas - Glenn Puddy, Vice President of Sales
Marlin Landscape
Dallas
The home on this property somewhat straddles styles. While its peaked roofs read as traditional chateau, the straight lines and materials lean on the modern side. When the homeowners approached the backyard-design team, they said they preferred to veer toward modern, having already completely outfitted the home interiors with furnishings and décor to match.
The designers decided to take advantage of the setting, lean into their modern design chops and, in the process, show off their skills at working with acrylic panels. They crafted a long, lean rectangular pool whose raised perimeter-overflow spa looks like a block of ice raised from the dark water. That effect comes courtesy of the four acrylic panels that form the spa’s borders above water.
Briana Wollman/BraveBones
Emerging Jewel
An 80-foot-long rectangular pool, with black pebble interior and perimeter-overflow design, provides the ultimate reflective surface to anchor the modern look.
The showcase of the yard sits at one end of the long pool — the clear spa emerging 18 inches out of the water.
“We knew the focal point of that project was the acrylic spa in the front,” says Nick Hauk, president and founder of Pure Design, a pool design and construction firm based in Frisco, Texas . “We wanted that to be the crown gem, so that when you walk in the front door you get that incredible shot with the spa front and center.”
Looking like a crystal artwork, it also ties in with a modern glass greenhouse that Pure Design installed.
Under the water, the spa’s shell is crafted of shotcrete and finished in black pebble. The top of the shotcrete spa walls sit just underwater and also serve as the rebate for the acrylic panels — or that ledge into which the panels were inserted.
To enhance the illusion, installers painted the bottoms of the acrylic panels gray. Painting only the part that would slot into the concrete, this would prevent somebody from looking down into the acrylic and seeing the concrete underneath. On either side of the acrylic panels, the rebate is capped with gray tiles.
Users enter the spa from either side via floating stepping pads, partially positioned on the rebate and sit about 1/8 inch higher than the water.
The homeowners asked for a unique lounging area, and the Pure Design team answered with a turf island on the end of the pool opposite the spa. Completely covered in artificial turf and sheltered with an arbor, it accommodates seating to enjoy the ultimate view of the yard. The louvered arbor top can be controlled remotely for a slatted feel or more solid coverage.
This island required the creation of two perimeter-overflow slot systems right next to each other. One goes around the pool’s outline, while the other borders the island itself. The builder constructed a Lautner edge detail around the pool. But shooting two perfect edge details in such a tight space seemed impossible, so the team opted for a system manufactured specifically to create slots by turf, determining it more feasible to install the tray system in the cramped space.
On the other side of the island, the team placed a massive marble-finished fire and waterfeature, with flaming cannonballs at the top and sheet fall spilling out of the wall into another perimeter-overflow vessel.
SUPPLIERS:
- Pump/filter/heater/autofill: Jandy
- Controller: Poolside Tech
- Chemical feeder: Clearwater Tech
- Waterproofing: Laticrete
- Interior finish: Pebble Technology
- Waterfeature: Great American Waterfall
- Automatic cleaner/drain
- Covers/fittings: PUL
- Lights: PAL Lighting
- Outdoor elements: Elemental Acrylic; Equinox
