The tiny house movement has gotten lots of attention in recent years, but there’s a tiny pool movement, too, and the 2018 Idea House in Narragansett, RI, will have one of these appealing features.
Called plunge pools, these items are typically personal-sized and have been a feature at luxury spas and villas for years. Now they are moving into backyards. With plunge pools, the idea is simply to lounge, not do laps, and the water temperature can be adjusted to be cool in summer and warm in autumn or spring.
At the Idea House, a 7×13-foot rectangular pre-cast concrete plunge pool was lowered into place recently. It’s 5 feet deep with a tiled interior, and when it’s finished, it will have a stone surround and ledge. It’s sure to become one of the highlights of the staycation-oriented rear courtyard, where plans also call for an outdoor kitchen, an outdoor shower, and a fire pit.
The plunge pool, manufactured by Soake Pools, is built much like a poured foundation: steel forms are used to mold a 4-inch-thick layer of masonry reinforced with steel rebar. Waterproofing is applied to the entire interior, then porcelain tile—designed to be submerged—covers the floor and walls. Preformed steps and benches provide easy entry, exit, and a place to hang out.
Design Insight: Landscape designer Jon Zeyl shaped the courtyard around the plunge pool with intention: “The idea was to not just create one huge rectangle,” he says of the area between the back of the house and a garage sidewall. “We wanted welcoming spaces, logically broken up by geometry, that people would want to use.” Concrete pavers in a variety of sizes and patterns unite the outdoor kitchen, seating area, and plunge pool into one cohesive outdoor oasis.
The plunge pool trend that the 2018 Idea House helped pioneer only grew stronger in the years that followed. As a This Old House Magazine feature noted, plunge pools gained significant traction early in the pandemic as homeowners looked to get more use out of their backyards. “Homeowners are using plunge pools because they don’t want the maintenance of a bigger pool, and they like that the pools can be hot or cold while still allowing for” relaxation and socializing. Think of it as the Goldilocks pool: bigger than a hot tub, yet shallower than a traditional in-ground pool, with just-right dimensions of roughly 4 to 5½ feet deep and sizes ranging from 7 by 7 feet to as large as 20 by 12 feet.
