Poolscapes
Outdoor Living & Poolscapes in Austin
The pool is the center of the room, not the whole room. Decks, kitchens, fire and light — designed in the same plan, poured in the same season.
A pool alone is a place to swim. A poolscape is a place to spend the evening — the deck you cross barefoot, the counter you cook at, the fire you sit near when the water goes quiet. We design the whole yard as one composition, so the parts meet instead of collide.
Decks & hardscape
Stone underfoot sets the tone for everything else. We build in travertine — cool in Texas sun, quick to drain, at home against limestone — with cut limestone and large-format porcelain as alternates. Every deck is pitched to carry water away from the shell and detailed for the clay soils that move under this whole region.
Outdoor kitchens
Built-in grill and burners, stone or concrete counters, a run of gas and a couple of properly protected circuits, set at the right distance from the water and the seating. Enough to cook a real dinner outside, not a token stainless box bolted to a wall.
Fire, shade & light
- Fire — gas fire pits, linear fire tables, and masonry fireplaces that anchor a seating area and stretch the season into the cool months.
- Shade — pergolas, cantilevered structures and cabanas that make midday usable, integrated with the house line rather than parked beside it.
- Light — low-voltage landscape lighting, in-pool LEDs and one-app automation. The dusk hour is the one you'll use most, so we design for it first.
Design the yard once and the pieces meet. Add them one at a time and you spend the next decade cutting into finished stone.
Built with the pool
The reason to plan outdoor living alongside the pool is money and disruption. While the ground is open, drainage, gas, electrical and footings all go in at once. Come back for them later and you are re-trenching a finished yard. Our custom pool builds carry the poolscape in the same set of drawings and the same season on site.
Questions we get
Should the outdoor living be designed with the pool or added later?
With the pool, whenever possible. Deck drainage, gas and electrical stubs, footing depths and sightlines are all far cheaper to set while the ground is already open. Adding a kitchen or fire feature later means cutting back into finished stone and re-trenching what a single plan could have carried at once.
What decking holds up best around an Austin pool?
Travertine is our default — the stone stays cool underfoot in full sun, drains fast, and reads honest against limestone country. Cut limestone and modern large-format porcelain pavers are the other two we specify. We avoid broadcast concrete near the water, which gets hot and shows every crack our clay soils cause.
Can you build an outdoor kitchen and fire feature to code?
Yes. Gas runs, GFCI-protected circuits, and clearances for grills, burners and fire pits are all pulled and inspected as part of the build. On the hillside lots we work, we also detail fire features to the wildfire-conscious setbacks some HOAs and the county now ask for.
Do you do lighting and automation?
Low-voltage landscape lighting, in-pool color LEDs, and automation that runs pumps, heater, lights and water features from one app are standard on our poolscapes. The dusk hour is the one most of our clients actually use the pool, so the lighting plan gets as much attention as the daytime one.
The whole room