KAA Design rethinks a mainstay of local outdoor living for a contemporarily conceived oceanfront abode on The Strand
In Southern California, the pool is a summertime essential to enjoy all year long—to infinity and beyond, as they say. We’ll take beyond, with the infinity pool pretty close to standard-issue in these parts.
Enter KAA Design. The L.A. firm went against the tide to create a focal point on the beach level of the contemporary home at 3rd Street & The Strand in the Manhattan Beach Sand Section—a sleek pool and spa hybrid it calls a “Spool.”
“After a big day out in the ocean, you can return to sit next to the fire and look over the still and reflective Spool for a calming effect.”
Adjacent to the terrace and living room, this astutely conceived feature is “outdoors but under cover of the second level” to allow “one to experience the California coast; the sun, the sand, the people-watching and the cool ocean breezes, without ever having to leave the comforts of home,” says landscape architect Michael McGowan, one part of the KAA Design team that also includes the firm’s founding partner and partner in charge of the project, Grant Kirkpatrick; principal in charge, Patti Baker; and project manager, Bradley Cooper. A place to chill on a hot day or, when in spa mode, warm up, the Spool grants a rare privacy on The Strand, with its louvered screens supplying discretion from the popular path.
As one focal point deserves another, KAA Design called on the mesmerizing Pacific seas so gloriously on show for inspiration. To gaze out at the cool blue expanse just past the property’s perimeter, 3rd Street & The Strand homeowners need but open up the glass walls to soak in the scene while, in the most ideal scenario, soaking in its figurative extension. In this way, the Spool embodies “fun and connection to the sand and surf,” offers Kirkpatrick. “After a big day out in the ocean, you can return to sit next to the fire and look over the still and reflective Spool for a calming effect.”
Sleek and sexy yet clean and quiet, the Mykonos-blue tiled Spool is as visually rich as it is sensitive to function. Stone flooring in the adjacent space acts as coping, and a structural board-formed concrete wall extends into the pool on one side. When the homeowners are not present, the Spool’s automatic cover ensures safety; when they are, a bench along two sides accommodates their lounging.
A wood deck promotes sitting poolside with one’s feet in the water while engaging in conversation happening in the living room, which remains free of inadvertent water run as the Spool is surrounded on three sides by a narrow slot drain. Activated by a custom cast bronze water cascade, the Spool is also equipped with spa jets for an impromptu massage. Because, sometimes, one just really needs to go with the flow. kaadesigngroup.com
Photographs courtesy of KAA Design