The pool on the Slade Estate, Mt. Kisco, New York 
ITS INCREASING POPULARITY AN INCENTIVE FOR COUNTRY 
LIVING—POOLS OF MODERATE COST AND SIMPLE CONSTRUC¬ 
TION-PRIVACY AND THE SETTING 
by Robert H. Van Court 
E ACH year brings a quickening of the love for country living, 
a constantly increasing interest in the many forms of ac¬ 
tivity the country makes possible. Pastimes upon land may be 
enjoyed almost anywhere; the delights of the air may be found 
as readily in one place as in another, hut water sports are not 
always possible in the majority of localities. 
A bathing pool may bring, to those who have not the beach 
with its sand and surf, much of the pleasure of open-air bathing. 
There are countless districts, though far remote from a water¬ 
course, where such bathing is possible, where a swimming pool 
upon the grounds of a suburban house or in the country would 
do much towards supplying the delights generally supposed to 
be had only at the seashore or on the edge of some spring-fed 
lake. After all, such a pool is only the revival, or rather the 
adaptation to modern conditions, of an exceedingly ancient de¬ 
vice, for the bathing pool or impluvium was one of the chief 
features of the Roman villa. Excavations at Pompeii and Her¬ 
culaneum have uncovered many an old residence equipped with 
such a pool for swimming; and not infrequently several of them, 
doubtless, intended for the servants and slaves, while the other 
was the gorgeously fitted bath of the master and his family. 
The Romans spared no pains in the sumptuous decoration of 
these pools and their surroundings: they were enclosed within 
walls or set in courts of their own amid flowers and trees: beauty 
was never denied so utilitarian a thing as a bath ! 
, While the revival of the bathing pool may be said to have but 
recently attained wide popularity, a considerable number of 
modern pools already exists in great variety, and in forms that 
rlange from the exceedingly simple to the magnificently ornate. 
Present-day pools are frequently built not only within courts, and 
thus amid surroundings resembling closely the pools of antiquity, 
but also in the open air, as more in keeping with the lusty out¬ 
door spirit that animates our newer civilization. Many, arranged 
for use throughout tire year, are placed within buildings that may 
be thrown more or less open during the summer, either by the 
removal of a glass roof, by the opening of windows, or the re¬ 
moval of glass panels within surrounding arches. 
A bathing pool when built out of doors is often placed upon a 
somewhat retired part of the estate. Where the desired privacy 
does not already exist, it can often be created by growing tall 
hedges or shrubbery or by using trellises or other forms of 
lattice work upon which vines may be trained to serve as a 
screen. There are instances, however, where a pool may prove a 
useful adjunct to landscape gardening, and highly decorative it 
may be made with its surface of clear, fresh water reflecting 
the trees or buildings nearby. Where the buildings are of the 
low and broad Italian type, the placing of the bathing pool upon 
or below a terrace or within a formal garden may help toward 
bringing the structures and their surroundings into complete 
harmony. 
The sizes of bathing pools naturally vary with conditions'. A 
pool, to be really useful, should be as spacious as circumstances 
will permit, and only rarely should it be less than fifty feet 
long by twenty or twenty-five feet in width. The depth 
might vary from three feet at one end to ten or twelve at the 
other, for such a pool will be intended, doubtless, for the use 
of the entire family: the shallow water is quite as attractive to 
the juniors of the family as the greater depth, where diving is 
possible, to the older. 
The materials of which bathing pools may be built vary even 
as much as the sizes the pools assume. Possibly the simplest 
method of building is to line the excavation with brick, upon 
which may be applied one of the many varieties of water-proof 
cement that present a smooth, hard surface. Concrete has been 
used in certain instances, and this, through its greater strength, 
adds yet another advantage to the pool; for when this construction 
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