PUTTING PEOPLE IN THE SWIM
	APRIL 2004

by Aaron Bryant
Photos by Brad Shifflett

My family has been in the swimming pool business since before I was born. I started getting down into those holes myself almost as soon as I could climb a ladder. From the beginning I just loved to work. When I got home from school or on weekends, I would go out with my dad and work right along with the rest of the crew. 

Creating custom swimming pools in people’s backyards must be more fun than putting new roofs on their houses. Our clients are so excited when the pool is finished that some of them (typically the younger members of our client’s families, but not always) absolutely jump up and down for joy.

KEEPING UP WITH CHANGING TIMES
Like everything else in the world, the technology used to design swimming pools has really changed. Not too long ago it might take a draftsman working on a light table with a T-square, protractor, and a box of No. 3 pencils a couple of days to complete a new design for a pool. Modifying existing designs involved manual searches through racks and drawers full of old drawings in order to locate suitable candidates for modification. The process I use with clients would appear like science fiction to the most up-to-date designer from a few decades ago. After taking rough measurements of the area where they want to put a pool, I use my laptop to show clients full-color plans of possible choices from the thousands of designs I have on my hard drive. 

We can modify any of the designs together or, if clients want to go crazy-creatively, we can work together to create a one-of-a-kind design. For example, if they have a 15-foot high hill on one side of their yard, we can design a pool that has a deep-water arm reaching out to wrap around the bottom of a 15-foot high water slide. We can design the shape of the slide to conform to the natural curves of the hill. There are as many possibilities for pool design as there are people who want to buy a pool. 

I’m still amazed by the technology myself. The process of designing a pool no longer requires two days. Using the CAD tools on my Dell laptop, the design phase doesn’t even take two hours. The process does, in fact, usually take a couple of hours, but that’s just because most prospective clients have such a great time playing fun little games with the possibilities the computer is suggesting to them. They don’t want to quit sometimes.

THE RIGHT POOL FOR EVERY YARD
Custom pool design companies like ours are prepared to design and build swimming pools of any complexity, from simple lap pools to elaborate designs incorporating interlocking pools, channels, and bays.

We are also able to build pools in all sizes, from intimate little miniature versions that can fit attractively in the backyard of any townhouse to large aquatic centers for people who like to put on swim parties, and want to be able to invite the whole neighborhood to dive in with them. 

We pride ourselves on being a onestop shop for pool installation projects. We can gather all the parts of design, installation, decking, furnishing, landscaping, and shade structures into a single contract.