engineering
As a designer/builder I openly admit that I am completely obsessed with water quality. A big part of why that's so is because I started out servicing pools. In fact, I really only moved into building them because I was so appalled by how builders in our area completely ignored the treatment side of the equation. It was so bad that I'd say the majority of pools we serviced had some form of shortcoming in the system that impacted water quality - undersized filters, only one skimmer, no chemical treatment technology, etc. - all which made
After starting in the pool industry more than 40 years ago as a service technician, I gradually became involved in repairs, then remodeling work and, finally, with design and new construction. I've now built commercial and high-end residential projects, done numerous vanishing-edge installations and have pursued designs and details I wouldn't have dreamed of doing back in 1979. But there was one look that I'd never had an opportunity to work on with any of my clients: a perimeter overflow. That all changed last year in a backyard in Alamo, Calif., and the interesting thing is that
It is rare that any of us are asked to build a swimming pond for horses. But why not? They are admittedly much bigger than Koi and certainly larger than humans, yet I am assured they are considerably cleaner than dogs and genuinely do benefit from the leg-relieving buoyancy that comes with immersion in water. The first pond I built for equestrian swimmers came along in the late 1970s - just after I'd completed several large gravel-filtration ponds for trout: It seemed at the time that the same principles that worked so well for
In recent years, I've become increasingly focused on landing projects on St. Thomas, St. John and a bunch of other paradisal surface eruptions off the east coast of North America: I like the people, enjoy the climate and truly love the laid-back island culture I find even among the high-end clients who call on me to design their poolscapes. Quite often, the settings are the far side of spectacular, too, with views of multi-hued coastal waters of the Atlantic Ocean stretching out for miles, often interrupted by
I'm not crabby by nature - just the opposite, in fact - and I don't want anyone to think that I go out of my way to find and critique flawed ponds. Thing is, I'm a reputable pond designer and installer and have made a point through the years of meeting with garden clubs and other groups that are interested in what pond-making is all about. After these events, it hasn't been uncommon for owners of ponds installed by others to call me over for a visit and ask me what I think needs to be done to address what they see as worrisome
It's like an old, familiar tune: When you've been working on major projects with the same group of people for more than a quarter century - always with common principles, shared experience and similar goals in mind - it's easy to pick up the instruments and start playing again without a moment's hesitation. That's exactly how it felt for us at Pinnacle Design Co. (La Quinta, Calif.) when we were called on to revamp key elements at The Vintage Club, a private, 36-hole golf facility in Indian Wells, Calif. We did our first work there in 1994 and have been involved in numerous landscape and waterfeature enhancements since then with renowned course designer
Global Watershaping