Belhaven Pool House

The owners had three goals for this project and imagined that it would take three buildings to provide a pool house that expands the usability of their existing pool, including a shaded sitting area, kitchenette, shower and bathroom; to provide privacy and enclosure from the rear neighbors; to build a bridge across the drainage “creek” and unite the adjacent lot and garden; to provide a garden and storage shed to support their gardening passion.

The architect’s solution was to follow the historic tradition of neighborhood back buildings but instead of three building projects, they united all three programs into one building. The solution includes a pool house, bridge, and garden shed linked to accomplish the owner goals. In order to transform the pool house into an open sitting area opposite the pool, large barn doors open and fully and move over the creek and cover the bridge adding privacy to the back yard when the owners are using the pool and pool house. The copper clad shower structure anchors the composition and provides a “hot figure”. The copper is visually hotter than the summer air, psychologically increasing the contrast and sensitively for everything cool; the greenery of the lush garden, the pool water, and the shady sitting area.

The pool house is a wood frame structure with a rain screen cypress skin. All the joints and flashing are copper.

Awards
AIA Mississippi Honor Award