15 Beautifully Designed Swimming Pools
What could be more enticing in summer than a swimming pool rippling gently in the afternoon breeze? While every pool is refreshing, a well-designed one can also bring drama to the landscape, which may be why they have played such memorable roles in cinema. In The Graduate, for example, when young Ben (Dustin Hoffman) wasn’t meeting Mrs. Robinson in hotel rooms, he whiled away his days on a float in his parents’ rectilinear suburban pool. In the James Bond film Skyfall, a fit Daniel Craig swims laps at night in a striking Shanghai rooftop pool. For the recently released A Bigger Splash, a glittering tiled pool on an Italian island captures the sexy, indolent mood of vacationers played by Tilda Swinton and Ralph Fiennes.
The enduring allure of a pool couldn’t be more simple and pure: It’s a cool and inviting respite from the heat—and an irresistible opportunity to kick off your sandals and play.
A black-plaster-lined pool, devised by Bonetti/Kozerski Architecture and Design for the New Paltz, New York, home of movie director Shawn Levy and his family, overlooks the Shawangunk Mountains. The expansive terrace is sheathed in pietra d’Istria , an Italian limestone.
An integral part of its hillside setting, the infinity pool at filmmaker Michael Bay’s Los Angeles residence was designed by architect Chad Oppenheim and executed by the firm Rios Clementi Hale Studios ; it features an oval inset hot tub.
Mexican architect Diego Villaseñor conceived this geometric Venetian-tiled pool at a compound in Los Cabos to take advantage of the site’s spectacular ocean views. The marble terrace connects two copper-roofed pavilions.
Chestnut hedges flank a tranquil stone-lined pool at the Grove, the Oxfordshire, England, estate of the legendary David Hicks. The chickens are newer additions; they belong to Hicks’s son, Ashley, also a designer , who now lives there with his wife, Kata.
On a Croatian island in the Adriatic Sea, a stone-paved pool by David Kelly of Rees Roberts + Partners melds seamlessly with the property’s centuries-old walls .
Chaise longues and side tables by Christian Liaigre populate a deck overlooking the infinity edge pool at a Los Angeles home designed by John Pawson.
A Palm Beach, Florida, pool, which overlooks the Intracoastal Waterway, was designed by 1100 Architect.
Janus et Cie chaises border the pool at Victoria Hagan's house on the Connecticut coast .
A pool at an residence in Ibiza, Spain, offers views of the Mediterranean Sea.
The sweeping view from the pool of Knoll CEO Andrew Cogan's residence in Shelter Island, New York .
Gray Organschi Architecture devised the single-story house and separate pool pavilion for Jonathan Adler and Simon Doonan's Shelter Island, New York, property .
The pool of Gisele Bündchen and Tom Brady's former Los Angeles home looks out over the city, with the Pacific Ocean in the distance.
Chairs by Richard Schultz for Knoll join Nucleo tables beside this infinity pool , lined in Sicis tile, in St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands.
Photographer Wolfgang Ludes's four-bedroom compound is sited on one of St. Barts's highest points; the view from the pool takes in St. Jean Bay, Anse des Cayes, and neighboring islands in the distance.
Just a stone’s throw from the dunes in Sagaponack, New York, is a beach house that design firm Cullman & Kravis created for a Boston family in collaboration with architecture studio Ike Kligerman Barkley. Surrounding the infinity edge pool is a bluestone terrace that hosts teak chaise longues by Janus et Cie. Edmund Hollander Landscape Architects oversaw the grounds.