The client wanted a splash of green to mirror the landscaping. “We needed twice the number of finishers to work the concrete before it started setting up.” To make the color as true as possible, Benedetti used a white cement base rather than gray. “We wouldn’t have trowel marks or the hand-finished appearance.” “If we did something that was precast, every stone would be exactly the same,” Benedetti says. The existing flagstone deck was expanded and the planter wall dry-stacked in quartzite.Ĭoping was poured from concrete dyed in a muted burnt orange to provide a slightly rustic look. He selected natural, earth-toned finishes with a lot of texture for an elegant yet casual look. To meet the client’s request for more light through the arcs, Benedetti used commercial-grade fiberoptic illuminators. They make a nice interactive feature for children, and form a viewing window from the spa. Laminar fountains arc from the planter to the pool, linking the elevations and adding a touch of elegance. Where it bends back, Benedetti made small planter pockets to soften the wall. In some spots, the wall veers onto the pool coping to visually connect the pool and spa. “Had we done a straight raised bond beam, we would have created a contemporary pool with all these rectilinear shapes,” Benedetti says. The curves counter the pool’s rigid lines. However, a 3-inch plumbing line feeds the water into a pool skimmer, and gravity drains keep the basin from vortexing.īenedetti flanked the vessel with a serpentine, raised planter wall.
The water appears to just spill on the ground. This safer solution also plays a trick on the eyes. The secondary vessel drains immediately, so it only holds a thin film of water, making it safe for children. He did it this way for two reasons: The client wanted to run the spa even with the pool cover closed - and falling water might trip the sonar alarm. He had the spa spill into a catch basin instead of the pool. He kiddingly refers to them as “Tishways,” which are named after Genesis 3 co-founder David Tisherman, who introduced them to Benedetti.
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Rather than the standard sheet fall, the spa overflows in a series of petite, 1-inch-wide spillways. “The client heats the pool year ’round, so having an 8-foot deep end without a diving board was wasted volume,” he says.īenedetti expanded the original template by adding a raised spillover spa. He also shortened the deep end to 5 feet. He squared off the corners to accommodate the cover and lengthened the pool 12 feet. The client wanted an automatic cover, so Benedetti kept the pool’s original rectangular shape. “All I left were two sidewalls and about one-third of the floor.” “We had to leave the pool in so that we could qualify under this heading of a remodel,” Benedetti says. But under the strict new setbacks, the pool couldn’t be long enough to provide the lap swimming his client wanted. Back to the presentīenedetti and his client considered tearing out the pool and starting over. For instance, Benedetti found a way to provide the aforementioned hidden cover box, and water from a raised spa drops into a mysterious receptacle rather than into the pool. What you don’t see is almost as important as what you do. He obliged, transforming an anachronism into a classic. “But he didn’t want it to look like Las Vegas.” “My client said, ‘Create something that’s subtle yet spectacular, so anybody can tell that this job cost bank,’ ” Benedetti recalls. “The pool had a precast safety grip coping that looked like a Motel 6,” says Benedetti, principal of Aquatic Technology Pool & Spa in Morgan Hill, Calif. It was a plain rectangle with rounded corners, and a tile line done in a black-and-white checkerboard pattern. The region is popular with the ultrawealthy, partly because no commercial structures of any kind are allowed.īut oddly enough, one of those backyards had the kind of pool you’d expect to find at a roadside motel. This focus on detail serves him well in areas such as California’s Los Altos Hills near Silicon Valley, which he says has the nation’s highest per-capita income. Or when he wants an attached spa that can spill over even when the pool cover is in place.
But some of Benedetti’s solutions answer problems of his own making, such as when he decides you absolutely must not see the automatic cover box, even from inside the pool. This service-technician-turned-builder is a born problem-solver. Paul Benedetti doesn’t make things easy for himself. The Canvas: A swatch of lawn, a retro pool in need of renovationThe Palette: Earth tones with streaks of green, tiny spillways, a cover box hidden by flagstoneThe Masterpiece: Details, details, details visual high jinks understated water movement
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