Builder/concrete expert Bill Drakeley combines a vanishing edge with perimeter overflow — and tops them off with acrylic panels in a structurally impressive installation.
While this home on Long Island Sound in Connecticut sported traditional New England styling, its owners had a penchant for cutting-edge detail.
Landscape architect Cory Jorgensen of Wesley Stout Associates in New Canaan, Conn. had already designed a long, 60-by-20-foot rectangular vanishing edge pool, whose sleek shape would allow lap swimming. He and the homeowners wanted to take it up a notch.
“The conversation started with, ‘We want a very cool pool. How can we make this one-of-a-kind and unique?’” says Bill Drakeley, managing member of Drakeley Pool Company in Bethlehem, Conn. “I said, ‘Well, you can do slot perimeter-overflow against the deck, you can do a vanishing-edge wall on the downhill side, you can put acrylic panels in there, you can do glass tile.’
“The owner says, ‘Yeah, let’s do all that.’ And I’m thinking, ‘Me and my big mouth.’”
The pool builder answered with a slot perimeter-overflow with grass running right up to it and, on the other side, a two-sided vanishing edge with double 7-foot-tall acrylic panels forming one of the corners. A shallow shelf, with about 6-inch-deep water and floating step stones, takes up a substantial portion of one end.
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