News & Announcements

The Art of Water Features

By: Sue Elliott-Sink

Source: Pool & Spa magazine

2.2009

A lush, tropical resort. A mini water park. A Greco-Roman fantasy.

People are transforming their backyards into all sorts of oases these days, and the unifying theme is water. Waterfalls, streams, fountains, grottos, all flowing into, out of and around luxurious pools and spas.

Consider a project that Mark David Levine Design Group of Beverly Hills, CA, is working on now for a celebrity's home in Benedict Canyon. It includes a natural-style pool and a more formal pool with a vanishing edge. A 50-ft. long swim channel connects the two, and it goes past a large koi pond?complete with a glass window for underwater fish viewing. Mark David Levine, president of the landscape architecture firm, describes some of the site's spectacular features. "There are bridges over it, a sauna, a swim spa, waterslides, waterfalls, a grotto, TVs, and even outdoor stereo systems."

Clearly, some people want it all, and they want it right in their own backyards. Pool builders and landscape architects have been happy to oblige, blending art and entertainment to suit clients' tastes and lifestyles.

J. Tortorella Swimming Pools, Inc., Southampton, NY, has been creating artfully themed spaces for clients, using Roman, Greek, Aztec, and even Egyptian motifs. In the South Central area, Aqua Classic Pools & Spas, Clute, TX, also has been creating themed fantasies, including a new Roman-style pool with water flowing down four Cantera stone columns at one end, large urns spilling water into the other end, fountains and a sheer cascade of water coming off a diving platform.

High-end homeowners obviously want to incorporate more and more water features into their impressively large swimming pools. And those water features have been getting bigger, too.

Waterfalls in particular have been getting wider and taller, and they flow more water, thanks to higher horsepower pumps. Lynn Forrest, president of Aqua Classic, says his company recently built a waterfall that uses two 71/2-hp pumps to flow 1,400 gallons of water per minute into a pool. And Susanne Lindemann, an architect and landscape designer who owns Insite Consulting, Oak Park, CA, recently designed a pool with a 40-ft. vanishing edge that uses pumps to transform the overflow into a striking 40-ft. long waterfall.

Replications Unlimited, Hazlewood, MO, is taking the giant all-in-one water feature to new heights. The company, which manufactures artificial rock waterfalls, is building a two-story creation that will turn the owner's backyard into a mini water park. The upper level has a spa and a waterfall that spills 10 ft. into the pool below. Built-in waterslides, an outdoor kitchen and a bar area complete the faux rock water feature.

While Replications Unlimited takes great pains to make its artificial rock look real, Artistic Pools, Inc., sometimes ties its manmade water features into Mother Nature's handiwork. For instance, if a property is situated on a lake, the company may create the illusion of a natural stream feeding the pool before emptying into the lake. The pool typically has a vanishing edge with a catch trough, from which the stream and pool water recirculate. "Then we pump lake water?up to a water feature at the base of the catch trough and hide it with a little bridge or some faux boulders," says company vice president Ron Coker, Jr. "So the illusion looks like water is cascading down a mountain into the pool, over the vanishing edge and then down into the lake."

Back east, J. Tortorella has been busy building islands. The company has positioned raised spas in the center of a pool, where they are accessible only by bridge. A sheer descent of water often flows out of the spa into the pool, creating drama and music.

In fact, tuning the sound of these water features has become something of an art. John Tortorella, president of J. Tortorella Swimming Pools, Inc., notes that dry-stacked bluestone is very popular in his part of the country, and his firm will create a stepped waterfall from this stone, which produces a rumbling effect.

"In a lot of cases, the water feature that we recommend is dictated by how much noise owners want," adds Coker. "If they are close to a highway and they want to drown out the road noise, we might come in with a water feature that has more ripples, so the white noise is more of a roar." The company also enables homeowners to control water features independently, so they can tone down the roar to a more conversation-friendly level.

High-end homeowners have also been incorporating art into their water features. Levine's clients often have him modify statues to spout water into a pool. Plus, he is doing a project now that will have a fine-art sculpture mounted in a basin. Water will not touch the sculpture; instead, it will cascade out just below, spilling into a spa. And Artistic Pools recently completed a project with a mermaid figurine on a sun shelf, cascading water into the pool.

Artistic Pools also has produced Greek and Romanesque fountains that just so happen to be swimming pools. To make one water feature do double duty, the company uses a telescoping fountain head. In the up position, it spouts water, then it retracts into the pool floor when someone is ready to swim. The company has also set jets into the base of a swimming pool's sun shelf, creating a fountain where children can play.

Undoubtedly, water features can be used to create virtually any style of environment?from a formal or classical motif to a family-friendly play space or a naturalistic grotto. "The more you can introduce repeating water into the same environment, the better," says Levine. "Water has great energy. It makes you feel good. It's invigorating. Water is a wonderful theme.