Pools built for Valley lots and Valley summers
A backyard in Encino or Tarzana usually gives us something a hillside lot on the other side of the pass cannot: room. Wider, flatter ground changes what is possible. It lets us set a pool away from the house so there is a real deck and lawn between the back door and the water, it makes space for a separate spa or a sun shelf without crowding everything together, and it gives equipment a sensible home where the run to the pool stays short and efficient. We design to take advantage of that space rather than treating it as empty footage to fill.
The climate is the other half of the equation. Valley summers are hot and dry, and an exposed pool on a wide lot can lose a surprising amount of water to evaporation across a long season. We plan for that from the start, thinking about where afternoon shade falls, whether a covered structure or a stand of planting belongs on the west side, and how the deck material will read underfoot at two in the afternoon in August. A pool that ignores the local heat is a pool that gets used less than it should.
Every choice we make connects to the next. The size and depth, the finish color, the deck surface, the equipment, and the landscaping around the water all influence how the pool feels and what it costs to run. Designing them together, as one project, is the only way to get a backyard that works as a whole instead of a collection of parts that happen to share a fence.