When Joyce Bowles of Backyard Aquatics decided to take on this project, she inadvertently agreed to become an expert in creative conflict-resolution. "He wanted a pond and she wanted an exercise spa," Bowles says of her clients. "There was no compromise. And I thought, why should they." She decided to give them both.
Separated only by a stacked-stone beam, these two gunite shells share no equipment but mirror one another in size and shape and embody certain features Bowles says are unique to her Mount Dora, Fla.-based business.
Rather than an exercise spa, for example, she built one of her trademark "Spools." Spools are smaller than pools, bigger than spas and contain therapy jets in only one area to leave room elsewhere for water aerobics. "Some companies do not like to build the small bodies of water, but we love them," says Bowles. "We can be even more creative."
The pond, on the other hand, becomes a tropical lagoon through a darker finish, a waterfall to aerate the water for the koi fish below and a bridge that Bowles considers one of her artistic specialties.
