Making a Splash

The latest coastal home pools are intricately planned, stylishly designed and always inviting.

- Jennifer Sperry

Great fashion appears effortless, and so too does a great coastal pool. Its refined lines and placid surface hide great depths of planning, engineering and features. It’s complicated to create, but super easy to enjoy.

Unlike fashion, however, pool trends take a while to percolate, with cutting-edge projects requiring a year or longer for completion. In the world of luxury pools – where each new project is highly customized – fresh design twists come in successive, visually provoking waves.

Already, 2017 is seeing a move away from the elaborate and the overt towards sleek, contemporary oases that communicate subtle sophistication. Here, industry experts discuss this trend and more, revealing what’s on the horizon for coastal pool perfection.

A POOL OF TALENT

The Master Pools Guild represents some of the top pool designers and builders in the U.S., but its members also hail internationally. “It’s always exciting to see what’s on-trend in different areas of the world,” says Special Projects Manager Teri Wiltshire.

“At the start of each year, we poll our 100-plus membership and compile a list of the top observed trends,” adds Wiltshire. “One that’s been present for a while and is again overwhelmingly popular is clean, crisp, geometric design.”

The infinity feature has been in use for decades now, and has contributed greatly to the clean-lined trend. But designers are continually upping the creative ante with new techniques. One dramatic example is the elevated perimeter overflow, where the entire pool vessel rises out of the ground, allowing water to spill over on all four sides.