Buyers of Pools Plunging Into ‘Waterscaping’
Fiberglass waterfalls. No decking. Artificially blue water. Fake rocks. Many, many plants. Welcome to the brave new world of Southern California home swimming pools.
It’s a vision attracting more and more Southland homeowners, say some contractors, a step forward in swimming pool design--waterscaping, the art of landscaping with water.
Rather than sunning by a traditional rectangular Gunite-lined hole in the ground, people want to “relax near a cascading waterfall” in the backyard, to quote some promotional literature on the subject. Upscale homeowners long “to hear the sound of cool rushing water as it gently makes its way over moss-laden boulders into a sparkling pool.”
Russell Rielle’s company, Hermitage Gardens of Canastota, N.Y., makes those aforementioned waterfalls, sculptured in natural-looking fiberglass.
“Just add water,” he said.
Sold to Contractors
The company sells a lot of these to Southern California building contractors, as well as spun fiber garden pools and even complete Japanese gardens. “Everybody in the country is using them,” Rielle said. “It seems like everybody is using water in landscaping.”
Mark Scott of Newport Beach designs high-tech waterscaping projects incorporating rocks, watercourses and lots of plants. You have to look closely at his creations to determine that they are not real, natural scenery. You won’t find a deck anywhere or anything resembling a diving board.
“I think this is a fashionable trend,” Scott said.
“Through the years, design directions have taken different tacks, and right now, this (natural) look happens to be in. A few years ago, it was the cleaner, brick coping look. Now we do quite a few swimming pools with grottoes, where you swim under a waterfall, and a lot of natural, free-form type pools.”
Lidyoff Landscape Development Co. of Fresno is doing a lot of business these days making swimming pools look like something they aren’t.
“The amount of work and rock that go into these waterscaped yards is by no means minor, considering that the natural rock waterscaping projects work upward from $20,000,” reads the promotional literature.
Sometimes, even the rocks aren’t what they seem. Dan Dougherty of Sandpiper Pools in Escondido said he is doing a lot of complicated and beautiful waterscaping “for reasonably affluent people.”
“Even for people who don’t have so much money. There’s a tremendous amount of emphasis on stonework and artificial stonework, even down to casting large boulder formations and having them set in concrete in a backyard. Twenty years ago, your last name would have to be Disney to afford that,” Dougherty said.
Uncertain Supply
Money alone is not all that keeps some people from waterscaping their entire backyards. If you ask Bruce Dunn of Mission Pools in San Diego, he might tell you that good sense might keep some Southern Californians from investing in lots of free-flowing landscape.
“This is not the best application of water,” Dunn said of waterscaping. “Think what would happen if the water situation got worse in Southern California.”
Conspicuous consumption would be attacked first, Dunn said. He notes that legislators have already mounted efforts to limit swimming pool building permits in places where water supplies are limited, like upstate New York.
“These applications have uses,” Dunn said.
Water features mask noise and are pleasing to the eye, “and we do a lot of water features,” including small-scale water features for backyards, he said. “Maybe the trend is toward adding a small fountain to a pool or spa, but as far as waterscaping goes, no, I don’t think this is a trend.”
Rielle disagreed. His fiberglass koi ponds and recirculating waterfalls are selling at a brisk pace. “A lot of backyards are pretty sterile,” he said. “A lot of people like the pond-in-the-woods look. So a lot of our products are turning up at houses.”
