SWIMMING IN STYLE: Making a Splash

Fantasy pools feature everything from creative shapes to over-the-top effects

By HEIDI KNAPP RINELLA
REVIEW-JOURNAL

This pool by Aquascape Pool and Spa, above and below, has a multilevel plan with vanishing edge, hidden spa and a bridge between the pool and spa. Photos by Craig L. Moran. This Aquascape Pool and Spa project, above, features a grotto like, sunken barbecue area, below, with a swim-up bar, veiled by a waterfall. Photos by John Gurzinski.

Julio Schembari, owner of Aquascape Pool and Spa, knows the feeling.

"We've done everything when it comes to building the fantasy pool," Schembari said. "I would say whatever the customer can dream up, we can only embellish that."

Perhaps the most outlandish, he said, was when a customer asked Aquascape to build a 10-foot-high mountain in the back yard. "And we built a gazebo on top of the mountain, that sits over the pool. That was pretty wild."

Other fantasy features, he said, include sunken barbecues with caves, swim-up bars, even one with a sunken cave with a swim-up bar. That one was on "Ripley's Believe It or Not," he said, as a background for a segment on a buffalo-fur bikini.

"I think when people build fantasy pools, they're building their lifestyles," Schembari said. "They're building their own backyard vacation. They want to get away from the daily routine of life, and the stresses. They want to turn on the music and the water features and be lost in another world.

"And they have something they can be proud of for years."