French Inspired Pool and Landscape. Designed and Photographed by Marco Romani, RLA - Landscape Architect. Arrow
Photo of a traditional backyard rectangular pool in Chicago with natural stone pavers and a water feature.

Tim Turner
Design ideas for a contemporary backyard rectangular pool in Melbourne with decking.

This beautiful pool in Miami Florida features one of a kind landscaping with spa and wet edge! The tile for the pool and spa are beautiful teal colors and the LED lights add extra flavor at night!

A backyard retreat in Dallas, Texas that features a wonderful outdoor living area and luxury swimming pool. This private oasis features a custom designed covered outdoor living pavilion with exposed timber beams and stone columns. The pavilion also features an BBQ grill, outdoor kitchen and seating area for entertaining the entire family. The luxury swimming pool features a travertine terrace and limestone coping. A backdrop fountain feature with decorative spouts, urns and tile which provides a focal feature and relaxing background noise.

Photo of a mid-sized traditional backyard custom-shaped pool in Toronto with a water feature and natural stone pavers.

Traditional rectangular pool with beautiful landscaping.
Inspiration for a traditional rectangular pool in DC Metro.

A family in West University contacted us to design a contemporary Houston landscape for them. They live on a double lot, which is large for that neighborhood. They had built a custom home on the property, and they wanted a unique indoor-outdoor living experience that integrated a modern pool into the aesthetic of their home interior. This was made possible by the design of the home itself. The living room can be fully opened to the yard by sliding glass doors. The pool we built is actually a lap swimming pool that measures a full 65 feet in length. Not only is this pool unique in size and design, but it is also unique in how it ties into the home. The patio literally connects the living room to the edge of the water. There is no coping, so you can literally walk across the patio into the water and start your swim in the heated, lighted interior of the pool. Even for guests who do not swim, the proximity of the water to the living room makes the entire pool-patio layout part of the exterior design. This is a common theme in modern pool design. The patio is also notable because it is constructed from stones that fit so tightly together the joints seem to disappear. Although the linear edges of the stones are faintly visible, the surface is one contiguous whole whose linear seamlessness supports both the linearity of the home and the lengthwise expanse of the pool. While the patio design is strictly linear to tie the form of the home to that of the pool, our modern pool is decorated with a running bond pattern of tile work. Running bond is a design pattern that uses staggered stone, brick, or tile layouts to create something of a linear puzzle board effect that captures the eye. We created this pattern to compliment the brick work of the home exterior wall, thus aesthetically tying fine details of the pool to home architecture. At the opposite end of the pool, we built a fountain into the side of the home's perimeter wall. The fountain head is actually square, mirroring the bricks in the wall. Unlike a typical fountain, the water here pours out in a horizontal plane which even more reinforces the theme of the quadrilateral geometry and linear movement of the modern pool. We decorated the front of the home with a custom garden consisting of small ground cover plant species. We had to be very cautious around the trees due to West U’s strict tree preservation policies. In order to avoid damaging tree roots, we had to avoid digging too deep into the earth. The species used in this garden—Japanese Ardesia, foxtail ferns, and dwarf mondo not only avoid disturbing tree roots, but they are low-growth by nature and highly shade resistant. We also built a gravel driveway that provides natural water drainage and preserves the root zone for trees. Concrete pads cross the driveway to give the homeowners a sure-footing for walking to and from their vehicles.

At night, the Allendale NJ inground swimming pool design shines brightly as a private oasis. The natural, tropical design is accentuated by the freeform shape, lagoon color, and the dancing tiki torches.

A backyard retreat in Dallas, Texas that features a wonderful outdoor living area and luxury swimming pool. This private oasis features a custom designed covered outdoor living pavilion with exposed timber beams and stone columns. The pavilion also features an BBQ grill, outdoor kitchen and seating area for entertaining the entire family. The luxury swimming pool features a travertine terrace and limestone coping. A backdrop fountain feature with decorative spouts, urns and tile which provides a focal feature and relaxing background noise.

Gib-San Pools Ltd. Toronto
Design ideas for a mid-sized traditional backyard custom-shaped natural pool in Toronto with a water feature.

The Berry family of Houston, Texas hired us to do swimming pool renovation in their backyard. The pool was badly in need of repair. Its surface, plaster, tile, and coping all needed reworking. The Berry’s had finally decided it was time to do something about this, so they contacted us to inquire about swimming pool restoration. We told them that we could certainly repair the damaged elements. After we took a closer look at the pool, however, we realized that more was required here than a cosmetic solution to wear and tear. Because of some serious design flaws, the aesthetic of the pool worked against surrounding landscape design. The rear portion of the pool was framed by architectural wall, and the water was surrounded by a brick and bluestone patio. The problem lay in the fact that the wall was too tall. It created a sense of separation from the remainder of the yard, and it obscured the view of a beautiful arbor that had been built beneath the trees behind the pool. It also hosted a contemporary-style, sheer-descent waterfall fountain that looked too modern for a traditional lawn and garden design. Restoring this wall to its proper relationship with the landscape would turn out to be one of the key elements to our swimming pool renovations work. We began by lowering the wall the wall so you could see the arbor and trees in the backyard more clearly. We also did away with the sheer-descent waterfall that clashed with surrounding backyard landscape design. We decided that a more traditional fountain would be more appropriate to the setting, and more aesthetically apropos if it complimented the brick and bluestone patio. To create this façade, we had to reconstruct the wall with bluestone columns rising up through the brick. These columns matched the bluestone in the patio, and added a stately form to the otherwise plain brick wall. Each column rose slightly higher than the top of the wall and was capped at the top. Thermal-finish weirs crafted in a flame detail jutted from under the capstones and poured water into the pool below. To draw greater emphasis to the pool itself as a body of water, we continued our swimming pool renovation with an expansion of the brick coping. This drew greater emphasis to the body of water within its form, and helps focus awareness on the tranquility created by the fountain. We also removed the outdated diving board and replaced it with a diving rock. This was safer and more attractive than the board. We also extended the entire pool and patio another 15 feet toward the right. This made the entire area a more relaxed and sweeping expanse of hardscape. While doing so, we expanded the brick coping around the pool from 8 inches to 12 inches. Because the spa had a rather unique shape, we decided to replace the coping here with custom brink interlace style that would fit its irregular design. Now that the swimming pool renovation itself was complete, we sought to extend the new sense of expansiveness into the rest of the yard. To accomplish this, we built a walkway out of bluestone stepping pads that ran across the surface of the water to the arbor on the other side of the fountain wall. This unique pathway created invitation to the world of the trees beyond the water’s edge, and counterbalanced the focal point of the pool area with the arbor as a secondary point of interest. We built a terrace and a dining area here so people could remain here in comfort for as long as they liked without having to run back to the patio or dash inside the kitchen for food and drinks.

Design ideas for a traditional backyard custom-shaped pool in Nashville with a water slide.

A large modern concrete patio slab, Industria’s square shape and smooth surface allows you to play with colors and patterns. Line them up for a clean contemporary look or have some fun by installing them diagonally to create a field of diamonds. Perfect to use for rooftops, terraces, patios, pool decks, parks and pedestrain walkways.

Here is a beautifully designed and built pool with elegant landscaping.
Inspiration for a contemporary custom-shaped pool in DC Metro.

This lap pool maximizes the space in a Bethesda backyard with fieldstone retaining walls that offer privacy and structure. Three sheer descent waterfalls add sound and movement to the swimming pool.

New pool and landscape environment, with travertine pool deck, pavilion and gardens.
This is an example of a mediterranean custom-shaped pool in New York.

Pool landscape design and installation to include a stone border, irrigation system renovation, Kichler landscape lighting system, and gravel channels for better drainage.

French Inspired Pool and Landscape by Marco Romani, RLA - Landscape Architect. Design and Construction of Entire Property by: Arrow
This is an example of a traditional backyard patio in Chicago with a fire feature, natural stone pavers and a pergola.

Amazing shut of a sunken spa within a pool
Modern infinity pool in DC Metro.