NO one will ever splash around in Steven James' pool, and that's just fine with him. What he likes is the way his compact $400,000 waterscape dresses up the view. It's shaped like a pentagon, with two sides spilling water -- or so it seems -- into the Newport Beach golf course below.
"I don't like swimming," says James from the sunny ledge of his backyard. "You get wet."
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday June 01, 2006 Home Edition Home Part F Page 9 Features Desk 1 inches; 44 words Type of Material: Correction
Pool care -- An article about pools in last week's section incorrectly stated that some generators use table salt to keep a pool clean instead of chlorine. The generators produce chlorine from regular salt, keeping a pool clean without the more difficult-to-handle liquid chlorine.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday June 02, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 45 words Type of Material: Correction
Pool care: An article about pools in the May 25 Home section incorrectly stated that some generators use table salt to keep a pool clean instead of chlorine. The generators produce chlorine from regular salt, keeping a pool clean without the more difficult-to-handle liquid chlorine.
Whether for getting wet or not, the swimming pool has always exerted a powerful hold upon the imagination. From the time of Roman emperor Trajan to the present, homeowners have obsessed over its seductions, and that obsession is most evident in Southern California, where pools are not just dug, they are worshiped.
Here, in our own backyard, is perhaps the highest density of private watering places in the world. Back in the early days, 1962, it was estimated that of more than 310,000 swimming pools in the United States, one-third were in California. Their popularity has never waned.
Today homeowners have moved well beyond the simple requirement of a hole in the ground. Instead, they crave Las Vegas-style amusements: remote-controlled flames, sound-activated dancing lights and the illusion of endless water. They want custom tile and real stone, architectural lines that match the house, and artwork and antiques near the waterline.
As with most objects in our material world, pools reflect who we are and who we want to be. Accordingly, designs have gone over the top.
In one Del Mar home, water overflows the rim of a pool on top of a carport and drops into a reservoir 10 feet below. In Venice, a homeowner is building a pool with a see-through bottom on top of his three-story house just so he can feel the sun filtering through it like a giant skylight.
And then there's James' pool. Two years of construction and more than 100 subcontractors helped ensure that the details were attended to, inch by inch. Oversized squares of travertine that cover the floors inside his house continue seamlessly through the backyard to the thin lip of the pool.
The crowning touch? Plaster coloring on the bottom of the pool in a shade of blue that perfectly matches the vivid hue of the Bombay Sapphire Gin bottle. James and his wife, Rusty, simply like the color. Sybarites never had it so sweet, and even though the couple never plan to jump in, wild ducks do.
"My friends joke that I have built a very expensive duck pond," says the furniture store owner.
