Newport Gunite Pool Builder: What to Look for on Aquidneck Island
Updated: Sep 28
A pool builder should be reading your land before drawing a pool.
The first thing I do on a pool project is not draw a pool. I walk the property. I want to see where the water goes after a hard rain, where the ledge sits under the lawn, where the wind comes across in February, and where the family actually wants to be at five o'clock on a July evening. The pool comes after all of that. I have been working on Aquidneck Island properties since I was a teenager, first as a gardener and later building stone walls and looking after estates in Newport, and when I started building pools I brought that same way of looking at the land with me.
Why gunite on this coast
Gunite is concrete sprayed over a steel cage and shaped by hand, right there on your site. It is the only kind of pool I build, and the reason I went through the Genesis program to become a Certified Genesis Pool Builder. On this island it matters because nothing here is flat or simple. A pool might need to step down a slope toward the water, sit inside a stone terrace or tuck against a ledge outcrop. Vinyl and fiberglass come in the shapes they come in. Gunite can be built to the land you actually have, and built right it holds up to salt air and our freeze-and-thaw winters for a very long time.
The pool is part of the landscape
Most of the regret I hear from homeowners comes from pools that were treated as a separate project. The pool company digs and pours, the stone crew shows up later, the planting comes last, and nobody quite owns the places where their work meets. The coping sits a little high, the terrace drains toward the water, the plantings never really settle in. When I design a pool I am also drawing the stonework around it, the path to the house, the drainage and the planting that will soften it over time. Because our own crew builds all of it, those decisions stay together from the first sketch to the last plant.
The first thing I do on a pool project is not draw a pool. I walk the property.
What to ask any builder
You should feel comfortable asking a builder a few questions, and you should get straight answers. Are you Genesis certified, and who on your team designed this pool? How will you handle drainage from the pool, the terrace and the roof? Have you worked within CRMC coastal setbacks on this island before? Who builds the stonework and the planting around the pool? And what does your workmanship guarantee cover, and for how long? Every installation we do is backed by a lifetime workmanship guarantee. I would not want to put my name on it any other way.
Permits, timing and where we work
A lot of properties in Newport, Middletown, Portsmouth and Jamestown sit close enough to the shoreline that the Coastal Resources Management Council has a say in what gets built. I design with those setbacks in mind from the start, so the pool we draw together is one that can actually be approved and built. Most of our pool projects run from spring into early fall, and the best time to start the design conversation is the fall or winter before. We build across Aquidneck Island, Jamestown, Little Compton, Newport County and into Southeastern Massachusetts.
Beginning your project
If you are thinking about a pool for next summer, give me a call at 401-619-1607 or request a consultation. I would be glad to come walk the property with you.
Comments