HOME DESIGN : Turning the Pool Into a Paradise

Like many other swimming pools in Orange County, the Hacker family pool in Costa Mesa was in need of an overhaul.

Fifteen years of soil movement and seismic activity had left large cracks in the pool and the surrounding deck. But instead of simply replastering the pool and laying new decking around it, Robin and Margo Hacker decided to go all-out and use the opportunity to turn their back yard into a private paradise.

Their five-month, $75,000 remodeling project transformed what was once a pedestrian rectangular pool with standard pale blue tiling and ho-hum concrete decking into a free-form, deep-blue lagoon fed by a waterfall and surrounded by exotic rockscapes.

The setting looks so natural that a pair of mallard ducks dropped in for a paddle last week after spotting it from the air.

Although the Hackers’ budget was about three times the going average for a remodeling job, Robin Hacker feels he got his money’s worth.

“By the time you get into doing the ordinary, it’s not that much extra to put in the extraordinary,” he says. “No one has seen the pool and not had their socks knocked off.”

As the ranks of 10- and 20-year-old pools swell, Orange County’s pool contractors find themselves handling more and more remodeling jobs.

Much of their work involves such basic renovations as replastering and retiling, removing or camouflaging unsightly equipment, and replacing outdated drainage systems, electrical circuits and pumps.

Emotionally, however, few pool owners are willing to pay thousands of dollars for such grunt work and have nothing to show for it. Many opt to pay extra--anywhere from $10,000 to $80,000--to enhance the pool visually as well.

According to Stanley Jakubowicz, owner of California Pools in Huntington Beach, not everyone waits until the paint peels and tiles start to fall off before giving their pools a face lift.

“Folks are looking to make their pools look more contemporary,” he says. “They are tired of living with the same old boring design from 20 years ago.”

Jakubowicz, who remodeled the Hackers’ pool, notes that the current soft real estate market has made many homeowners hesitant about putting their homes up for sale. They are choosing instead to stay where they are and upgrade their homes.

To some, that means putting pools into tiny tract yards that would never have seen a pool before. To others, it means refurbishing the aging family pool and converting the humble back yard into a sophisticated entertainment area with plenty of atmosphere.

Requests for swim-up bars are increasing, and automation is hot. Control panels that look like they have been lifted out of a cockpit give pool owners push-button control over everything from what time the waterfall gets turned on to how hot the spa should be on bridge night.

“Everybody has got their little dream,” says Tom Bench, design manager at Rock Formations, a pool construction firm in Anaheim. “And there’s no reason they can’t have what they want so long as the budget is there.” Bench estimates that remodeling work accounts for 10% of his company’s business, and the figure is increasing.

As response to the stresses of the daily grind, today’s suburban sybarite is looking to create a personal retreat in as natural a setting as possible.

Decks are now made of brick and stone, landscaping is lush, and waterfalls are in. The rock business--for both the natural and fake varieties--is booming. Reinforced concrete “rocks” are being used for just about anything, from creating doghouses to hiding loudspeaker systems. As a bonus, the cracks and stains that once marred concrete decking only enhance the natural appearance of these rocks.

The “lost paradise” motif has increased demand for such exotic features as water slides carved out of rocks and grottoes hidden behind waterfalls, but not all remodels can incorporate them.

“In order to have a slide you need a slope,” Bench said. “We have built some up, but in general, remodels are a little more limiting than new installations.”

Although artificial rock is less expensive than the real thing, the tab for replacing a pool’s plain trim with rocks can still start as high as $25,000 because the old deck and coping first has to be demolished and sandblasted.

And to create the illusion of a natural pond, many older pools also need to have their hard angles softened by having their corners filled in and reshaped.

These softer, free-form shapes are not to everybody’s liking, however. Nat and Dorothy Dyer of Anaheim replaced their 10-year-old kidney-shaped pool with a new rectangular one. “It took up a lot of space, yet there was less pool.”

Dyer also enlarged the size of his spa, which now holds eight people instead of three.

“I discovered over the years that people don’t really care about pools,” he says, laughing. “They want to sit in a spa.”

He decided to have the spa elevated so he and his guests could look down into the pool.

“As an insurance man, I travel all over the country and see a lot of homes and a lot of pools,” he says. “The elevated ones always seemed to me to make more of a fashion statement.”

Adds Jakubowicz of California Pools: “Even if people can’t have a waterfall, they still like to have some sort of water feature, so we always try to elevate the spa and have water gently flowing from it into the pool. That way they can sit down with a drink in the evening and listen to the sound of flowing water.”

Adding a spa or enlarging an existing one is one of the features most often requested in remodeling projects. And spa manufacturers are scrambling to satisfy the growing market by offering such innovations as a Hydro-Tube, a five-foot-deep stand-up spa, which delivers a full-body water jet massage from shoulder to toe.

A growing number of economy-minded pool owners are simply ripping out their old pools and replacing them with spas.

For what it would normally cost them to retile and replaster a pool, they can fill in the family pool with rocks and sand, drop a state-of-the-art spa into place and build a new deck. A spa not only gives them more usable yard space, it uses less heat, requires less maintenance and saves water.

Spas have come a long way since the first hot-tub parties 20 years ago.

Hydro-Tube Spas Inc. of Laguna Hills has created the Rock Spa to satisfy the current appetite for natural-looking, rock-lined pools. Cast in an irregular lagoon shape, the spa is made from a lightweight artificial rock material that the company developed by mixing granite with resins. It feels like rock, yet costs about half as much as other rock substitutes. Once the spa is dropped into place, the company can add waterfalls and more boulders for atmosphere.

People who like to swim but want the economy and convenience of a spa can have it both ways thanks to the “swim-spa” being marketed by Grecian Industries Inc. in Westminster.

Taking up only slightly more space than a regular spa, the swim-spa incorporates a standard spa section along with a swimming section where powerful water jets create a current that the swimmer swims against. Because they are literally swimming in place, swimmers can swim for miles without ever having to turn around. The force of the current can be adjusted according to the workout desired.

Because the savings in both energy and upkeep are so substantial, even homeowners with plenty of back yard are replacing their pools with swim-spas.

“People can do everything they did in their swimming pool with about one-tenth the water,” says Chet Lockwood, Grecian’s sales manager. According to Lockwood, the company sold more than 2,300 swim-spas in 1989 and is expecting a 150% increase in sales in 1990.

Les and Jane Mazer of Laguna Hills have a half-acre back yard with stunning views of Nellie Gail Ranch, yet they opted to install a swim-spa, which takes up barely 8 1/2 by 13 feet.

“It’s so expensive to keep the temperature up on a normal pool,” Les Mazer says. “But even on the coldest day, you can warm up the swim-spa in under an hour, which is why you get two to three months more use out of it than you would a swimming pool.”

Mazer adds that the speedy heating is a boon to entertaining.

“If you have a lot of people over, and they can’t all fit in the spa, it’s easy to heat the swim section up to spa temperature,” he says.

Meanwhile, owners of standard-sized swimming pools are looking for ways to hold down the high cost of heating their pools. Many are retiling or replastering their pools in darker colors, which aid in heat absorption. It is black plaster, for example, that gives the water in the new lagoon-type pools its distinctive dark blue color.

Although swimming pool covers do a great job reducing water evaporation and preventing heat loss, they are also a bother to use. But a new breed of fully automated covers from companies like Cover Pools Inc. in Tustin may change all that.

At the push of a button, a durable cover of vinyl reinforced with polyester mesh slides along a recessed track to cover the pool in seconds. Besides insulating the pool and cutting energy costs, pool covers keep dirt and debris out and children and pets safe.

The growing concern for pool safety figures heavily in many remodeling jobs.

Contractors are now often asked to fill in the deep end of pools, and to replace diving boards with gentle slides. Families with young children are turning to the latest in pool alarms, which range from infrared beams around the pool to motion sensors in the water.

But even pool supply stores are quick to admit that this is one area that modern technology has not yet conquered. Video monitors need to be watched constantly, and motion-sensors can easily be set off by a gust of wind. If their batteries are not dead, that is.

According to the National Swimming Pool and Spa Institute, there is still no substitute for child-proof fencing and close adult supervision.