Creating an Oasis in Avon

The main purpose of this project was to utilize a previously unused portion of the back yard for a new pool area.  The area where the pool is now located, was a wooded slope.  One of the main concepts was to have the pool be easily accessible from the house and then create “destinations” triangulated around the pool.  The spa, fire pit and sunning shelf are those three functions.  Another major consideration was to tie the existing large boulders into the space by using them as a visual anchor and highlighting them with a natural looking water feature.

In order to provide a level area for the pool, we used two boulder retaining walls to raise the elevation of the patio at the deep end using the fill cut from the pool itself and the patio at the shallow end.  The height difference was so dramatic, the shell of the deep end of the pool sits almost level with the previous elevation of the yard!

The use of natural materials for the vertical walls was combined with the use of concrete pavers for the patio surfaces.  The amount of cost saved in using a concrete paver versus a natural stone allowed the customer to get more features for roughly the same budget.