Making a splash: waterside properties with their own pool

These waterside vacation properties bring the tranquillity of their natural surroundings right up to the back doorstep, for a relaxing, outdoor atmosphere that can be enjoyed from the comfort of home.

By Aristides Dallas Architects and James Wormald

April 24, 2022 | 10:00 pm CUT

Vacationers at Villa Apollon can gaze out across the blue waters of the Ionian Sea in comfort, from the home’s varied pools and seats set across different heights. Photo: Yiorgos Kordakis

When asked to name their top dream home locations, the words 'beach' or 'coast' come easily to many people's lips, while for me personally, 'lakeside' springs instantly to mind. But whether you prefer your neighbouring water enclosed and peaceful, or to breathe in and out like a living thing and stretch out over the horizon, waking up to a glistening landscape or the soundtrack of lapping waves can bring the visual and acoustic wellness properties our hectic lifestyles crave.

Instead of forcing residents to leave the comfort of their home to enjoy it, however, these selected projects let their natural environments flow into the floorplan, with cleaner, safer, sheltered pools, and, in one case, even the sand, too.

Partly covered by the hillside, The Lap Pool House (top) features views from covered terraces (middle) and an extra-long pool that stretches out towards the ocean (bottom). Photos Panagiotis Voumakis

The Lap Pool House

Tinos, Greece by Aristides Dallas Architects

Inspired by the rocky cliffs and natural cavities found along the coastline of the Greek Island, Tinos, The Lap Pool House by Aristides Dallas Architects sits, shrouded by the hillside, gazing out across the Aegean Sea. Protruding from the earth like shrapnel, the house makes peace with the landscape by blending its concrete construction with the ground above. While hidden under the surface, the home's interior only comes up for air – and light – via a series of cuts and breaches, revealing skylights and even a hidden entrance staircase.

Home swimmers are given the feeling they're in the expanse of the ocean themselves, or else hovering above it

Interior/exterior living areas with corner-sliding glass doors tentatively emerge from the cave, alongside a more audacious pool, stretched out towards and, seemingly, over the sea. Home swimmers are given the feeling they're in the expanse of the ocean themselves, or else hovering above it.

Colo Crossings House’s central courtyard plunge pool (top, middle) provides private relaxation while relinquishing the view to the interior living spaces that surround it. Photos: Tom Ferguson

Colo Crossings House

Lower Portland, Australia by Benn + Penna Architecture

Sitting inland on the banks of Australia's idyllically remote and winding Colo river, the Colo Crossings House by Benn + Penna Architecture enjoys a much cooler, more peaceful climate. Its residents, too, who are able to celebrate their surroundings from the comfort of a centrally-located plunge pool, clearly prefer a more relaxed way of life than those at The Lap Pool House, using the pool solely to enjoy the view, rather than to actually exercise.

By wrapping the house itself around the pool, Colo Crossings spreads its incredible view around all sides of the home, while camouflaging the structure's green shipping container exterior with the natural greys and greens of the landscape.

The partly covered walkways connecting the House in Trancoso pass through sandy beaches (top) and paddling shallows (middle) before ending above a deeper pool (bottom). Photos: Tuca Reinés

House in Trancoso

Trancoso, Brazil by David Bastos

Instead of wrapping the house around an internal courtyard pool, as Colo Crossings has, in the beach-edged town of Trancoso, Brazil, the House in Trancoso by David Bastos flips the switch by positioning itself right on top of the artificial shores of its own private beach.

Formed by a collection of six individual rustic huts, the house is separated by a network of connected wooden piers. As one moves through the floorplan, from hut to hut, they pass above a changing terrain of sand and foliage, through the shallows of the shore and onto a terrace at the home's rear, jutting out into the centre of a vast, naturally-shaped pool.

Residents and their visitors can stand on the edge of the terrace, greeted by gentle water all around them, or swim across the pretend sea, where a floating sun-lounger encrusted pavilion awaits.

For minimal impact on the hillside views, Villa Apollon’s partly submerged form includes multiple exterior seating, dining and swimming zones that step down towards the sea. Photos: Yiorgos Kordakis

Villa Apollon

Vasiliki, Greece by Block722

Another Greek island hillside, another partially submerged home with an open-air terrace and pool. But there's plenty of individuality to be found at Block722's Villa Apollon to make it worthy of discussion.

The large vacation home includes four guest rooms for large get-togethers, and with three separate outdoor seating zones, served by a covered outdoor kitchen and dining space and two different pool typologies, there are plenty of individual areas for large groups to splinter and reconvene, serving to best utilise their time in each others' company.

The format of Villa Apollon's terrace spaces, meanwhile, takes five separate steps down the hillside, allowing each to enjoy its own infinity effect and a perfect, unobstructed view.

Making a splash: waterside properties with their own pool

The Lap Pool House

Colo Crossings House

House in Trancoso

Villa Apollon

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