Designer Swimming Pool Trends – The Latest Ideas for Pools

Faux grottoes, cascading waterfalls, amoeba-shaped outlines, corkscrew waterslides, and athletically sprung diving boards—pool design has long been a fertile font of hedonistic experimentation. But the latest trend in upscale pools reveals a different impulse: a back-to-simplicity, less-is-more desire to create watery retreats that position the pool as a beautiful, integral part of a home’s architecture or a cohesive element of the larger landscape.

“It’s more of a reflecting pond in the garden,” says designer Madeline Stuart, noting that she has recently been working with numerous clients on longer, narrower rectangular pools. “They would rather have something that’s elegant and narrow and that doesn’t overtake the yard. The idea of this ginormous pool that can accommodate dozens of people—that’s for the YMCA.”

Devon Dobson, president of Connecticut-based bespoke-pool company Litchfield County Pools, has seen the same thing. “We’re not doing grottoes or diving boards,” he says. “And we’ve been shifting away from the standard 20-by-40-foot pool by slimming and extending the proportions. Some are only 12 feet wide—a very slick look.”

James Merrell

The pool at a Bridgehampton, New York, home devised by Steven Gambrel.

With the disappearance of diving boards, pools are also getting shallower. “It makes it more of a social gathering spot,” says interior designer Martyn Lawrence Bullard, who partially filled in the pool at his new house in West Hollywood to reduce its depth from eight feet to five feet. “You can walk around the pool submerged in warm water and have a drink. It’s also much better for the environment, because you need less water and it’s easier to heat.”

“There is nothing more elegant and chic than a completely tiled pool.” —Madeline Stuart

Many top-tier pools go shallower still, with broad steps or underwater sun shelves that enable lounging in less than a foot of water. “There’s something glamorous about that,” says decorator Kelly Behun, who has long, shallow steps spanning the full width of her pool in the Hamptons—a concept she first explored while working with Philippe Starck on a pool that has an expansive shin-deep section at the Delano South Beach in Miami Beach. “You can have this connection to the pool and get a little bit wet without fully committing to swimming.”

Behun’s pool has several other breathtaking features, including a pair of underwater windows (shown above) that look into the home’s gym on one side and at the beach on the other. And then there is that ultimate accessory—the infinity edge.

Eric Piasecki

Decorator Juan Montoya designed a pool with a view at this family retreat in the Dominican Republic.

“It blurs the boundaries between where the pool ends and the sky begins,” she says. “It’s lovely feeling like you’re hovering out there.” But, she warns, it doesn’t work in every backyard—infinity pools are best reserved for sloped sites where the earth on the far side of the pool really does fall away.

A pool’s finishing surface can dramatically alter its appearance. Most upscale pools are formed with a sprayed concrete base of gunite or shotcrete and finished with plaster, which typically includes a mix of marble dust. White plaster results in water with a classic, light turquoise color—Bullard’s favorite. “I’m very old-school,” he says. “I love a white plaster finish, so the water has that real Beverly Hills Hotel vibe.”

Trevor Tondro

A pool overlooking downtown Los Angeles matches the midcentury architecture at Phillip Sarofim’s home in Beverly Hills, which was designed by Miles Redd.

But plaster is also routinely applied in a range of grays, from a pale ash that will give the water a deeper, ocean-blue hue, to charcoal, which can make it appear black and highly reflective—an effect that was all the rage a few years ago but is now becoming less common. “It was definitely a thing,” Stuart says, noting that “murky bottoms” might be a good name for a band, but they are less desirable when you want to see where you’re swimming.

Finishes such as Pebble Tec and Hydrazzo, which have exposed aggregate like tiny pebbles, have also been gaining ground. But for the ultimate in sophistication, Stuart prefers a continuous surface of porcelain or glass tiles. It is the most expensive option, she says, but “there is nothing more elegant and chic than a completely tiled pool.”