Reconsidering a misplaced backyard pool reveals a hillside jewel.

High on a Paradise Valley hilltop, Tony and Gerrie Marks’ home enjoys sweeping views in nearly every direction. To the east rises the rugged silhouette of the McDowell Mountains, framed by Mummy Mountain; to the west, Piestewa Peak anchors the sunset.

But the backyard itself never quite lived up to the promise of the site. “We wanted a comprehensive plan for the whole backyard, not just a pool redo,” Gerrie says. They sought the vision of landscape and pool designer Kirk Bianchi. 

The existing pool, a trapezoidal shape dropped somewhat arbitrarily into the backyard space, did little to reinforce the architecture of the house or the geometry of the property. The task was to bring the pool and landscape into harmony with the theme already established by the home and site. “The house already has its own music,” Bianchi explains. “My approach is to echo and amplify that, resolving anything that might create discord.”

The bones of the site were remarkably strong. “Michelangelo once described carving his statue of David by saying he simply saw the figure already within the stone and chipped away everything that was not David,” Bianchi says. “Working on this property felt much the same.”

The design began not with the pool, but with the yard. The first move was to chip away and reclaim space dominated by the oversized pool. By constructing a new wall within the existing pool footprint, a patio area was recovered—creating room for a long-missing sun deck that captured the best views. The pool now felt more proportional to its surroundings.

Next, the composition needed a visual anchor. The existing pool’s short vanishing edge pulled the eye downward to nearby neighboring rooflines rather than outward to the mountains. “A vanishing edge works best when it reflects a compelling background,” Bianchi observes. “Without one, the gesture loses its purpose. What was missing was a focal area to serve as the subject of the space. We transformed this area into a raised planter bed to block the rooflines beyond, and to provide a context for dramatic plantings. We clad it with the same ochre and bronze stone borrowed from the house.”

The homeowners also wanted a spa near the primary bedroom with easy access without the need to traverse the entire yard. Practical challenges followed. The spa’s overflow water needed to return to the pool for recirculation. The solution became one of the project’s most intriguing elements: a shallow sun shelf, only one-half-inch deep, encircling the spa like a moat. Water quietly spills across this surface before rejoining the pool.

But if the spa was surrounded by water reconnecting to the pool, how would one reach the sun deck beyond?  The answer came in the form of a cast-in-place concrete bridge—an embedded plank spanning the shallow channel and inviting visitors to cross the water as part of the experience. 

“Kirk’s idea of creating a bridge leading to the best view of the mountain was inspired.”

-Gerrie Marks, Homeowner

Meanwhile, the geometry of the pool itself was recalibrated to echo the skewed architectural lines of the house. An awkward swim-out that interrupted the original pool’s leading edge was streamlined. In its place, new steps and benches align with the architectural order already present on the site.

As a finishing touch, the question became, how could a water feature be integrated discreetly? “Water features are frequently inserted into pools as preconceived objects, but I prefer letting them emerge from the design itself,” Bianchi says. In this case, ispiration was provided by the stairway rising toward the elevated master suite. Rather than placing scuppers in the planter wall, the stair line was extended through the pool and across the spa moat. Water now cascades down the same stepped path. The result is a tranquil feature heard before it is seen—quiet and discovered while crossing the bridge.

The transformation of the Marks’ hillside home did not require removing the pool at all. By thoroughly integrating the surrounding elements and removing what did not belong, the pool was brought into alignment, revealing what the site already held: a hillside jewel waiting to be discovered. 

The garden came first. The water found its place.