Builders and clients don't always see eye to eye, which was the case early on for Phil Cook, owner and CEO of Blue Water Pools in Mt. View, Calif., and his clients.
"They wanted a deep pool for their kids to swim in," says Cook, "and they wanted a zero-edge design because they had seen it at a hotel. [The pool] is only 36 feet long and 11 feet deep, and we spent a lot of time trying to talk them out of it, but they wanted their 11-foot-deep pool.
"That was the biggest challenge - trying to talk the customer out of [that depth] with such a short pool," adds Cook. Cook's renderings even illustrated to the homeowners that in order to achieve its 11-foot depth, the shallow end would begin at 6 feet deep. "And they said they were fine with that!" says Cook.
Despite some structural issues, Cook and his team completed the project to his clients' liking, adding a 9-foot sheeting waterfall to a raised wall at the back of the pool. Cook originally designed the waterfall in three 3-foot sections, but after a call to the factory, he was able to have a custom one-sheet waterfall built.
He also slightly modified the Mini Pebble Black plaster color from National Pool Tile to a charcoal color, giving it more of a reflective quality, he says.
In the end, both builder and the homeowners were satisfied. "When the pool was all finished, I was standing there with the owner and an 11-year-old girl jumps in and swims across like an Olympic swimmer!"
