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Cool Pools
10 July 2015
Cool pools In great shape When it comes to cool (if a bit out there) pool designs, it’s hard to go past celebrities. So if you’re looking for some glitzy inspiration, here are some of the backyard pools that helped personify the glamorous lifestyle of the rich and famous. 1. Liberace’s piano poolLiberace was the […]
Cool pools
In great shape
When it comes to cool (if a bit out there) pool designs, it’s hard to go past celebrities. So if you’re looking for some glitzy inspiration, here are some of the backyard pools that helped personify the glamorous lifestyle of the rich and famous.
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1. Liberace’s piano poolLiberace was the world’s highest paid entertainer when he built his home in Sherman Oaks, California in 1953. While the singer moved out in 1957, his mother Frances and brother George remained – along with an enormous piano-shaped swimming pool that remains in the backyard to this day. It has black and white keys embossed in the concrete and a black trim around the edge. |
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2. Frank Sinatra’s piano poolThe Rat Packer was famous as a singer, not a pianist, but that didn’t stop him incorporating a piano-shaped pool in his Palm Springs home in 1947. The house was nicknamed twin palms because of the two palm trees next to the pool that visitors passed on their way to the house via a covered walkway. The walkway casts shadow across one side of the pool, creating the impression of a keyboard. |
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3. William Randolph Hearst’s Ancient Roman poolsThe media mogul’s ranch at San Simeon has two pools, built in an ancient Roman style, which sit like ruins from the classical age. The Neptune Pool and the Roman Pool are pendant pieces – the Neptune Pool is outdoors, while the Roman Pool is indoors (eat your heart out Beverly Hillbillies!). The Neptune Pool evokes classical Rome, and is built on top of 17 dressing rooms. Italian Renaissance-style staircases led from the changing areas to the pool. The Roman Pool was designed to evoke the Byzantine culture. In 1927 Hearst even thought of building a third pool, in a hothouse, complete with sharks. Yes, real sharks! |
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4. Jay Dweck’s Stradivarius poolThe former head of equities strategies for Goldman Sachs built a $1 million pool inspired by a Stradivarius he once owned. The pool is perfect in every detail, including a spa shaped like a chin rest and two thin koi ponds nearby shaped like a bow. Site restrictions meant the pool would have to be long and narrow, and the owner realised that the shape of his beloved violin was exactly right for the space. The design also includes purlflings, f-holes, a bridge, strings and a tailpiece. Oh, and you can kayak in it thanks to a riverflow system that pumps 7570 litres a minute! (We don’t have pumps like that standard on the shelf at Swimart – but we’ll do our best to get you one if you promise to invite us around for a swim in the Strad!) |
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And here’s the shocker …
5. Elvis Presley’s kidney pool
We kid you not. If you took it for granted that The King would have had a guitar-shaped pool at Gracelands, then think again. Elvis had a kidney-shaped pool built at the house he bought in 1957 that probably inspired millions of copycats in backyards around the world (including Australia). |
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