I adore vintage pools; when I visualize one or come across one, I get instantly transported to a breathtaking spot of backyard puffer fish light fixtures, tiki huts, and mermaid ceramic tiles. Who can recall, while on a holiday swimming in a few of these spectacular pools, until your parents called you in when it got late?
Image source: flickr.com
How did the pool come to be? Vintage pools may trace their origins to Roman and Greek baths of centuries ago; however, pool lovers are embracing these vintage designs nowadays.
Below is a rich history of the vintage pools:
The Neptune Pool was one of the earliest private residential vintage pool, which was constructed in the 1920s at William Randolph Hearst’s California mansion. Built around Roman and Greek designs, it instituted the home pool as a status symbol and also caught the imagination of most people.
Hollywood directors were fascinated by such pools and started to feature vintage pools in their films, which then led to other people getting interested with pools. An excellent example is Busby Berkeley’s By a Waterfall that features some beautiful synchronized swimming.
Image source: flickr.com
However, it was post World War II prosperity, which truly resulted in the backyard pool becoming popular. These vintage pools had already been instituted in the American mind as a sought after home accoutrement, and the discovery of Gunite, or pneumatically positioned concrete, made constructing swimming pools much more efficient and made them accessible to the middle class.
Gunite as well made it possible to build more modern pool shapes. One remarkable example is the Donnell Swimming pool that was designed by architect Thomas Church and is found in Sonoma, California. This pool gave rise to an entire generation of Kidney-shaped swimming pools. These freeform swimming pools were meant to blend with nature and more very closely look like natural ponds.
The swimming pool also caught the imagination of many renowned midcentury architects, who integrated them into a few of their best-known designs. Raymond Lowey residence in Palm Springs had a freeform swimming pool, which extended into the interior of the residence.
Another residence that was designed by architect Richard Neutra, the Kaufmann House, is also located in Palm Springs, California, and notably featured a swimming pool.
Nowadays, we are beginning to see smaller plunge pools and lap pools and as people shift to denser, more urban areas and become more conscious of how their swimming pools are impacting the environment. However, the huge popularity of swimming pools shows no indication of declining, with the increasing summer temperatures, relaxing in a cold, refreshing swimming pool on a sunny day remains as alluring as ever.
