The Secret Garden
Location: Escena, Palm Springs, CA
Completed: 2022
Average cost: $125,000 - $175,000
Area: 3,250 sq. ft.
Length of the construction: 42 weeks
Pool Designer: Logan Guinard
Pool Contractor: Architectural Blue
Landscape Contractor: Architectural Blue & Mike
Photography: Logan Guinard
Description of the clients’ request
“This project was envisioned when we moved to a new home, in a new city, with new vegetation and what seemed like new limits - because, after all, we were now going to live in the desert.
We needed to find people to help us who would be daring, and who could envision what, in those early days, we could not.
We needed to swim in a pool that didn’t feel cramped.
We couldn’t stand the dull concrete slabs that looked stained and dreary.
And, the artificial turf had to go.
There were a few problems with our property that we couldn’t wrap our heads around.
First, it was divided into two sections: one was a northern side that just seemed to sit there in a rather unusable and unfriendly way.
Second, the pool was made shorter by a hot tub at one end and steps that seemed to take up almost a third of the length.
Third, the white cinder block walls felt like a prison.
And fourth, the gorgeous view of the mountains wasn’t what captured the eye - though it very much needed to.”
— C. D, The client
Take a look at the 3D rendering
We used the software Pool Studio to help the customers visualize their project before starting the construction and also to make some improvements on the design during the progress of the project.
During the construction
“Slowly, and at times painfully, the project started to take shape. The first requirement was that we had to live through demolition.
We needed to completely and utterly demolish what was around us in order to build something new, and that meant jackhammering for days that turned into weeks. We were not convinced it would ever end, but one day, it did.
Then came the choosing of pavers. We wanted to bring the mountains, the lines, the texture, the color and even the feel of the mountains, into our yard. We chose a beautiful grey stone with subtle lines throughout, but once they arrived from Spain, they sat at a port in Los Angeles, and then there was no one to drive them to Palm Springs. AB even thought of sending their workers in shifts to pick them up, but alas, one day, they arrived and were placed in the front driveway.
The pool, newly designed with a pale white/blue/green/silver sparkle pebble tech finish, was next.
Men in boots and cleats showed up and seemingly covered themselves and the pool in a matter of days, and we started to see a glimmer of hope. We chose a sleek, modern design with tracks for an electronic pool cover because, believe it or not, nights and mornings can be chilly in the desert.
Most intriguing was our find In the shop of AB, where we discovered metal pieces stashed in a corner that would become sentinels along the back wall of steel.
But what about the garden? How does one create a sense of lushness with prickly thorns everywhere? It took a long time to appreciate the glimmer of silver and pale blue, and to see the beauty in the unfurling leaves of agave plants.
The team traveled to Temecula, to a nursery without a name on a road without a name, to find plants that were ………. unusual. Sensual. Elaborate in their simplicity. Mature enough so we wouldn’t have to age alongside them but could enjoy them now. And the team enlarged to include a landscaper who clearly loved creating magic.”
— C. D, The client
The final result
Hence, the north ‘meditative’ garden was born, replete with two olive trees and a sculpture of stone that wraps two halves into one. And the final touches are being completed by adding a new metal gate, trellises for the dwarf fruit trees and gorgeous metal plates to transfix the eye away from the pool and a/c equipment and complete the marriage of stone, metal and desert plants to create a true oasis.
We are living now in what feels like paradise.
