Projecting Elegance
Watershape design should respond to the setting and the clients, rather than preconceived ideas, explains Alison Felschow. In this project, that belief system led to a design that was a far departure from the simple rectangles other builders had offered.
By Alison Felschow
Sometimes a project calls for more than a simple rectangle. This project was never about fitting a pool into a yard, but instead focused on fitting a pool to a house, a view, and a way of living.
In this upscale Columbia neighborhood, surrounded by naturally fed ponds that feel more wild than ornamental, that truth was unavoidable. The setting was elegant, the architecture distinctive, and the clients unapologetically visual. Dropping a standard pool into the yard was never going to work.
The home itself set the tone. With a blend of Mediterranean and Italian influences, it features graceful arches and strong architectural lines that invite dialogue rather than competition. The pool needed to respond to that language. Rather than pushing the water away from the house, as previous builders had proposed, the final design pulled it close, elevating it into the primary line of sight and making the water part of the home’s daily visual experience.
Steps to a View
The owners were clear about what mattered most. The wife wanted to walk through the front door and immediately connect with the water, watching the edge dissolve into the pond and landscape beyond, rather than stopping at a neighbor’s fence. The husband wanted impact and entertainment, including a slide and features pulled straight from the pages of luxury magazines.
The design had to satisfy both instincts without tipping into excess.
That balance began with placement and elevation. The pool is essentially above grade, rising as much as 16 feet from its lowest point. Achieving the vanishing edge effect meant carefully calibrating heights and sightlines. To help the clients understand what those numbers really meant, the builder marked the proposed water level with tall poles and a thick rope stretched across the site. Only then did the vision click into place.
Structurally, the project was anything but simple. While initial soils tests suggested stable conditions, excavation at the deep end revealed pockets of sugary soil, a less than forgiving material, exactly where the slide and deepest structure were planned.
That meant shoring became essential, and traditional solutions threatened to drive costs sharply upward. Instead, an unconventional approach using stacked concrete bags created a stabilized mass behind the wall. Steel was placed in front, shotcrete followed, and the bags remained in place as part of the permanent structure. It was an elegant workaround born of necessity and experience.
The pool steps down from the house in a series of shallow risers and treads, subtly lowering the water plane to capture the view beyond the property line. From the front door, the eye now travels across water and straight into the distant pond, achieving the visual vanishing act the owners had imagined from the start.
Soft Elegance
Material choices reinforced the Mediterranean character without becoming heavy handed. Texas limestone, with its soft earth tones, anchors the structure and avoids the long-term maintenance risks of lighter stucco finishes on a tall water wall. The surrounding deck is porcelain that convincingly mimics limestone, laid in large format slabs that keep the space feeling expansive and refined.
Inside the pool, a light, subtly iridescent finish reflects both daylight and artificial lighting. Inspired by techniques seen in other high end projects, the pale tile amplifies LED illumination at night, creating the illusion of continuous strip lighting even along edges where fixtures could not be installed. The effect is understated and luxurious rather than theatrical.
Fire bowls sit atop substantial pilasters, each three feet square, their scale intentionally robust. Rather than metal, the bowls were selected for their thickness and warmth, evoking old world pottery. Integrated fire and water elements add movement and sound, delivering the bells and whistles the clients desired while remaining consistent with the overall aesthetic.
One of the most visually intricate zones combines the spa, Baja shelf, stepping stones, and shallow lounging areas. This layered composition creates multiple ways to occupy the water, from casual wading to social gathering. At night, strip lighting beneath the steppers enhances both safety and atmosphere, giving the entire area a floating, almost weightless quality.
Pressure Points
Not every compromise was painless. The slide, a non negotiable request from the homeowner, was originally meant to be softened by surrounding palms and dense planting. Landscaping ultimately fell outside the pool builder’s scope, and the finished result left the slide more exposed than intended. It remains a functional hit with the family’s three children, even if it disrupts the original visual narrative.
Behind the scenes, the mechanical systems reflect the same level of thought. All equipment is tucked beneath a seating area, below water level, a decision that required careful coordination with local regulators unfamiliar with such configurations. The system includes multiple variable speed pumps, glass-media filtration for the main pool, separate cartridge filtration for the vanishing edge, ozone sanitation, and warm toned LED lighting controlled through Hayward automation.
From design conception through years of stop and start construction, the project demanded patience, adaptability, and trust in instinct. In the end, the pool does exactly what it was meant to do. It feels inevitable, as if it could never have been anything else. It belongs to the house, the landscape, and the lives unfolding around it, which is precisely the point.
Alison Felschow is owner of Crystal Pools in Columbia, SC. She is a second-generation watershape builder, and a member of International Watershape Institute
Photos by Jimi Smith Photography.