All photos courtesy Mike Stanton | Oasis Pools & Spas
There are plenty of projects that stick with a builder over time. This was more than that. This was the one that started everything.
Mike Stanton Sr., owner of Oasis Pools & Spas in Mandeville, La., was just 12 years old when his family decided to build a pool in their backyard. His father worked in construction, and with four boys in the house, hiring out the work wasn’t really the mindset. If something was getting built, they were going to do as much of it themselves as they could.
That meant digging, plumbing, setting tile and coping — whatever they were capable of handling. Stanton still remembers tying steel across the entire pool shell himself, working through the Louisiana heat without much thought beyond getting it done.
"We didn’t know any different,” he says. “You just picked it up and did it.”
The pool quickly became more than just a project. It turned into the center of the home — the place where birthdays, weekend seafood boils, and summer nights naturally unfolded. Over time, it held years of routine and celebration without anyone thinking twice about it. It was just where life happened.
His parents stayed in that house for the rest of their lives. When they passed, Stanton handled the sale of the property, closing the door on a place that had quietly carried decades of meaning.
Or so he thought.
BACK TO WHERE IT STARTED
When the home changed hands, it was renovated over several years. During that time, the original pool was removed entirely, leaving behind a blank slate where Stanton’s first build once stood.
When the house was eventually sold again, the builder who had done the renovation shared the backstory with the new owner — how the pool had been built, who had built it, and how far back that history went.
That detail landed.
The new homeowner reached out to Stanton and asked him to come take a look at the backyard. By then, there wasn’t much left, just grass and open space, but stepping back onto the property brought more than opportunity.
“It was emotional,” Stanton says. “You don’t expect it to hit you like that. But it does.”
That was enough to seal the deal.
“He told me, ‘If I’m going to do this, I want it to be you.’”
A NEW BACKYARD, BUILT FROM SCRATCH
The homeowner had a clear vision for how the space should function, but he wasn’t set on how to get there. What he wanted was a backyard that felt complete, something that made full use of the property and worked for his young family.
Stanton’s sons, now part of the business, took the lead on shaping the layout. Together, they developed a plan that reimagined the yard as a series of connected spaces rather than a single focal point.
The pool and raised spa anchor the design, backed by a clean-lined wall that introduces both movement and height. Water spills from the center, while fire features sit above, bringing a different kind of energy once the sun goes down. The materials were chosen to tie directly into the architecture of the house, keeping everything visually consistent without feeling overly designed.
Beyond the water, the rest of the yard continues to build on that idea of use. A putting green runs along the perimeter, and a basketball court fills out the far end of the property. Even the small details, like a custom mosaic in the pool, were incorporated in a way that ties back to the homeowner’s family.
“There wasn’t really any wasted space,” Stanton says. “Everything had a purpose.”
A DIFFERENT KIND OF BUILD
From a construction standpoint, the project moved the way most builders hope every job will, but rarely does.
In the New Orleans market, building pools often comes with tight logistics. Backyard access can be extremely limited — Stanton says his team recently dug a pool through a passage barely 2 1/2 feet wide — and most projects bring a steady stream of homeowner questions as construction moves along.
This one didn’t.
The homeowner approved the design quickly and never revisited it. Outside of two additions, a swim system and the custom mosaic, there was little back-and-forth.
“Over a few months of construction, he called me one time,” Stanton says. “One question.”
That question had to do with the copper fire bowls before they developed their natural patina.
Beyond that, there was no second-guessing.
For Stanton, that kind of confidence stands out. It’s not something that can be built into a process or replicated from job to job. “He knew what this meant to us before we even started,” he says.
A SECOND GOODBYE
People from the neighborhood, some of whom hadn’t been around in years, stopped by as the project progressed — both to remember the house as it had been and to see what it was becoming.
Beyond Stanton’s sons, his daughter came home from LSU to see the project, and his wife, his high school sweetheart of more than 30 years, visited during construction and again to see the finished space. They walked through the yard as a family, taking in the pool without the pressure of the work still ahead.
It wasn’t the same house. It wasn’t supposed to be. In fact, standing on the finished project, the contrast between this build and the one Stanton worked on as a kid was impossible to ignore. “We’ve sure come a long way since then,” says Stanton.
In an industry defined by constant turnover — new clients, new sites, new timelines — the opportunity to return to the same backyard, let alone your childhood home and the first pool you ever built, is rare.
“To build this one alongside my sons made it even more so,” Stanton says. “It’s not something that happens.
