Nobody spends the afternoon in the water
People swim for twenty minutes and sit for three hours. Which means a pool is only as good as the ground, the shade and the privacy around it, and that is the part most properties get wrong.
Poolscape design in St. Louis is our specialty: the full environment around the water, drawn as one piece of work and built by our own crews. Whether you are putting a pool in for the first time or you have a good pool sitting in surroundings that have aged out, we start from the same question, which is where you will actually want to sit.
What is a poolscape?
A poolscape is everything that is not the pool. It is the reason one pool area feels like a resort and the one next door feels like a slab with water in the middle of it. On an estate property it usually covers five things at once.
Strategic tree planting for privacy, shade and something to look at in October. Poolside patios, sun shelves and lounge areas sized to how many people you actually host. Built-in lighting and sound. Decorative retaining walls, garden beds and raised planters that hold the grade and soften the hard edges. And drainage and grading tailored to your property and your pool type, which is the invisible one that decides whether the rest of it lasts.
Designed together, those five read as one place. Bought piecemeal from different trades over several summers, they read as five decisions, and that is what most swimming pool landscaping looks like.
Pool installation by trusted partners
Building a pool and building the environment around it are two different trades, and the results show when they are run as two different projects. So we work as one team with Poseidon Pools and Outdoor, who install the pool while we design and build everything that surrounds it.
That means one drawing, one schedule and one number, rather than you standing between two contractors deciding whose drainage problem the wet corner is. Already have a builder you like, or a pool that went in years ago? We work alongside whoever you have chosen just as easily. The point is that you coordinate nothing.
Poolscape features we design
Privacy is almost always the first thing an estate owner asks about and the last thing a pool contractor thinks about. Layered evergreens and specimen trees give you a pool area nobody overlooks, in a season or two rather than a decade. Outdoor lighting is what turns the pool into somewhere you swim at nine in the evening instead of somewhere you stop using at seven. Retaining walls and deliberate grade changes turn a sloped yard into terraces that hold the deck flat and give the whole pool area design a sense of level.
Then the hardscape and the lounging. A poolside patio wide enough for chairs and a walk-behind, sun shelves in the shallow end, shade where the afternoon sun lands, and a kitchen or fire feature far enough from the water to be usable and close enough to matter.
Privacy Screening
Layered evergreens and specimen trees, so the pool is not on display.
Poolside Patios
Stone that stays cool underfoot and drains away from the water.
Sun Shelves and Shade
Somewhere to sit in the water, and somewhere to get out of the sun.
Evening Lighting
Path, tree and water lighting that makes a nine o'clock swim normal.
Outdoor Sound
Speakers built into the planting beds rather than sitting on the deck.
Walls and Terraces
Grade changes handled properly, which is most of what makes a pool area feel calm.
Beds and Raised Planters
Planting that softens the hard edge without dropping leaves in the water.
Drainage and Grading
Where the water goes in a hard rain, decided on purpose rather than discovered.
Poolside Kitchen
So lunch does not mean everyone tracking through the house.
Fire by the Water
What keeps people out there in September once the water has cooled.
A pool installation and poolscape design in Kirkwood
We designed the pool deck, water feature, surrounding landscape, and coordinated irrigation and outdoor lighting.
Our design-build process
Four steps, and you know the number and the schedule before anything is dug. On a new pool we sequence with the pool crew so the heavy equipment comes through once. On an existing pool we work around your season, which usually means starting in the fall so you open in spring to a finished poolscape.
Consultation
We walk the property and start from how you entertain friends and family. Then grade, drainage, sun, mature trees and equipment access.
Design and coordination
The whole poolscape drawn in 3D, materials named, and the whole team working together.
Build in the right order
Grade and drainage, then walls, then hardscape, then planting and lighting last.
Walkthrough and care
We walk it with you, then most estate clients stay on a care program with one manager who knows the property.
What people ask before they start
Do you build the pool as well? +
Together with Poseidon Pools and Outdoor, yes. They install the pool, we design and build the environment around it, and you deal with one team. If you already have a pool contractor you like, we work alongside them instead.
Can you rework the surroundings of a pool we already have? +
That is half of what we do here. A twenty-year-old pool with a cracked concrete surround and no privacy is a poolscape project, not a pool project. We rebuild the deck, the grade, the planting and the lighting and leave the water alone.
What plants belong near a pool? +
Evergreens and broadleaf material that hold their leaves, with the messy droppers and anything thorny or bee-heavy kept back from the water line. Privacy comes from layering heights rather than one row of the same thing, which also means a gap never opens up if one plant fails.
What stone should the deck be? +
Travertine is the usual answer because it stays cool underfoot in August, which matters more beside a pool than anywhere else. Dense pavers and natural stone both work if the color is light enough. The pitch away from the water and the joint detail matter as much as the material.
When should the poolscape work happen? +
Fall, for most clients. The pool is closed anyway, fall is the right season to put trees in the ground here, and you open in spring to a finished space rather than losing a summer to a construction site. New pools are the exception, where we sequence to the pool build.
Can you hide the pool equipment? +
Yes, and it is worth asking early. Screening walls, planting or a built enclosure, with real service access left in so nobody has to dismantle a hedge to reach a pump. The noise matters as much as the look, and both are easier to solve before the pad is poured.
Built at the same time, for less
Patios
The deck around the water, set on a base that keeps it level.
Learn More →
Outdoor Lighting
The difference between a pool you use until seven and one you use until ten.
Learn More →
Retaining Walls
Terraces that hold the deck flat on a sloped property.
Learn More →Ladue · Clayton · Frontenac · Town and Country · Chesterfield · Kirkwood · Webster Groves
And the surrounding St. Louis area. If you are not sure whether we come out your way, call and ask.
Pool area already right, and you just want it kept that way?
See the maintenance plans →Create your poolside retreat
Poolscape design in St. Louis done properly means one drawing, one crew and one number, with the pool contractor coordinated rather than left to you. Start with a walk of the property.