Floating On Grass
A Montclair family achieves their vision of a pool that knows its place, achieves an effect and honors the spirit of their home.
Design by Scenic Landscaping with Tapestry Landscape Architecture and Tranquility Pools
Photography by Heather Knapp
Text by Donna Rolando
Being stuck at home, as most of America was during COVID, has one connotation. Being stuck at home with a built-in pool and a family-friendly backyard has quite another.
“I think, like everybody else, we just wanted a pool,” recalls homeowner Stacey. She’s discussing what motivated her and her husband, Rick, back in 2020, to undertake an outdoor redesign of their roughly one-acre lot in Montclair.
“The property had a very large yard, and it was just asking for a pool,” she says. “We also found that we needed to update the landscaping because it had overgrown a bit. We were just trying to freshen everything up.”
Former Ridgewood residents, she, Rick and their two children had recently “upsized” to this five-bedroom, classic brick estate and wanted some of the amenities that had graced their former home.
Besides green giants for privacy, landscaping includes white hydrangeas and colorful, seasonal flowers, which seem to pop against the green of the ample lawn.
Major drainage issues could have thwarted their plans, but Rick Zimmer, principal landscape architect at Haskell’s Tapestry Landscape Architecture and Scenic Landscaping, was confident that even the “swamp,” as Stacey called it, could become an entertainment zone. With the completion of the project in 2022, extensive drainage and grading turned their underutilized yard into a space where Stacey says even spur-of-the-moment entertaining is easy.
“My husband had a very specific vision that he didn’t want to have the pool in the middle of the yard,” she recalls. Putting the pool off to the side allowed for uninterrupted lawn space— and that’s where the drainage comes in.
“It took a lot of subsurface-type drainage to ensure that these nice, level lawn areas would stay very dry,” Zimmer recalls. As for grading, wide lawn stairs reflective of an old estate and a four-foot-tall retaining wall—masked by landscaping—get the job done, along with existing terraces.
Another mission was to reflect the elegance of the early-1900s colonial and its materials—such as bluestone—in the landscaping. The 18-foot-by-42-foot gunite pool built by Tranquility Pools (under the Scenic Landscaping umbrella), for instance, is surrounded by bluestone coping, an alternative to a wraparound patio, maximizing the lawn. Additionally, the choice of a deep blue plaster for the pool magnifies the effect of a water feature. In harmony with its setting, “it looks almost like a refined reflecting pool,” according to Zimmer.
The result of limiting hardscape and maximizing green space is a floating effect for both the pool and the patios, where lounge chairs beckon. “We wanted the pool to have a cleanness to it—a sort of understated elegance,” says Zimmer. Because pools epitomize relaxation, this one also features a spa, a sun shelf and enough shallow water for everyone to enjoy, he adds. Stacey marvels at how Zimmer and crew gained the space for hubby’s pool vision by taming a formerly overgrown area of their yard.
Visible from both the sunroom and the pool, this reimagined garden with its focal-point urn was a pleasant surprise for homeowner Stacey.
This property is not only about summer beauty. “We created a defined space or outdoor room for the pool that you enter through some low hedges,” says Zimmer. “Even during the winter months, while the pool’s covered, it still gives you a beautiful view of the yard.” In addition, for a family that loves to entertain, an upgraded bluestone patio—softened by movable planters—accommodates a simple outdoor kitchen and firepit area for gatherings.
Most of the former yard provided a clean slate, with only a patio, terraces and lawn existing, but landscapers worked hard to soften the view of a detached garage, which although charming in brick made a poor focal point. As Zimmer explains, ornamental trees and other landscape “keep your eye instead on the formal lawn area.” Landscaping also helped cross shade off the family’s wish list, with a grouping of linden trees, instead of a structure, serving as sun cover, Zimmer explains.
While Stacey applauds the entire project, her favorite spot was unexpected. Outside her sunroom windows, she can now savor what resembles “an English garden” and “sit out there, where you couldn’t before, because it was just mud.”
She commends Zimmer and his team for their new, family-friendly outdoor space. “We always had the land,” she says, “but it was underutilized, so it’s almost like he grew the yard.”
With water woes a thing of the past, the landscaping complements its regal surroundings.
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