Residential
Luxury residential pools and spas, designed and built in the Hill Country
Contemporary and natural water environments for water-centric lifestyles, with sound, movement, lighting and fire for day and night moods.
A pool that suits how the house is lived in
Most people who call Aqua Builders about a residential pool are not asking for a rectangle of water. They are asking for a place that works at noon and at nine at night, at the right height above the lake or the creek, with the sound of water carrying up to the terrace. The firm's brief is contemporary as well as natural outdoor water environments for water centric lifestyles, with sound, movement and lighting weighed from the first sketch and fire elements added to make ambient day and night moods.
Pools go wrong in predictable ways when they are treated as a single trade. An equipment room is sized after the fact and ends up behind a retaining wall with no service access. Lighting is added late and the trenches cut through finished flagstone. Scuppers are set at a height that splashes the deck instead of falling into the water. A shell is cast on ground that was never treated as a structural question, which matters on a Westlake bluff or a Lake Austin slope. Each of those is a coordination failure, and each is cheaper to prevent on paper than to fix in concrete.
The residential portfolio runs from Desert Flower, featured on the 2018 AIA Homes Tour, through Barton Creek Bespoke, West Lake Contemporary, Lake Austin Abode and Westlake Cliffside to the Tarrytown Remodel and Rollingwood Retreat. Natural pools, creeks, caves and lakeside builds sit in the same catalogue as lap pools, plunge pools and spas.
Hill Country contemporary home with a raised infinity-edge pool and spa above a lawn
Drawn, modeled and then built by one team
The work starts with 2D perspective work and construction design and detailing, then moves to 3D perspective work with Revit modeling and BIM coordination with clash detection. That is how a pool shell, its piping, the retaining walls and the house's own structure get checked against each other on screen before anyone mobilizes. Lead Designer John Hamilton, an Austin native who trained in pool design at Keith Zars Pools in San Antonio, works in Pool Studio and AutoCAD. One client, Arran G., wrote that after meeting Ebbn Milks the renderings followed quickly and impressed them straight away.
The CAD set that comes out of that process is specific: pool layout plan, pool dimensions plan, piping plan, equipment room layout, pool sections showing shell thickness and rebar position, and a piping isometric that lists components, direction and GPM by pump speed. Concepts can also be shown as 3D animation, so a homeowner can walk the design with the team and change it before it is poured.
Construction stays inside the same firm: land survey and layouts, site work and excavation, architectural and structural concrete, hydronic supply and mechanical sets, masonry, fire features and water features, exterior lighting design and installation, and landscape and irrigation. Casitas, hardscapes and outdoor kitchens are planned with the water rather than handed to a second contractor. The office at 18992 FM 150 in Driftwood is a short drive from most of the Hill Country jobs it serves.
After the water is in
The team describes itself as highly knowledgeable about water chemistry, and Aqua Builders offers full-service monthly swimming pool maintenance for the pools it builds. A Google reviewer, Lunetitas Home Entertainment, put the experience this way: “You always can call or text from design to after completion of pool.”
Large properties do not always arrive finished. Master planning and phased installation let a pool and spa go in first, with a casita, outdoor kitchen or lower grotto added later without tearing up what is already built. Older pools get cosmetic or full renovations, as on the Tarrytown Remodel and the Clarksville Historic Remodel. To begin, call (512) 722-3636 and a project manager will contact you about the proposal process.
2023 Pinnacle Award, Luxury Pools + Outdoor Living, for Waterfront Elegance: multiple pools, fire features, a rain curtain and a sculptural fountain.
Next to this work
What else sits behind a residential pool?
- Commercial and hospitality
Hotels, resorts, condo developments, master planned communities and baptismal pools, from the urban core to lakeside and hill country.
- Design and consulting
2D and 3D perspective work, Revit modeling with BIM clash detection, full CAD sets and master planning with every engineering discipline.