Lagoon pools are a cool design concept. They are freeform pools that mimic a natural body of water, and are typically surrounded by a lot of natural landscaping and stone to resemble a tropical paradise. Most lagoon-style pools have a natural plaster color, like blue, teal, green, or sand, to resemble a swimming hole in the middle of nature. In this article, I’ll cover the main pros and cons of building a lagoon pool, lagoon pool types, some of my favorite lagoon pool design ideas, and finish up with some considerations during the construction process. Let’s get started.
Main Benefits
Lagoon swimming pools have a bunch of great advantages, mostly aesthetics.
Beautiful Design
The lagoon style of pool is such a beautiful design if you like the tropical theme in your backyard. These pools are typically pretty extravagant as well, with many including features like large landscaping rocks, big trees and shrubs, grottos, rock slides, and lots of other features.
Natural Privacy
Lagoon pools typically have a lot of landscaping directly around the edge of the pool. If you don’t have a ton of coverage between you and your neighbor’s yard, this pool style can be a natural privacy feature for you, your family, and guests.
Very Unique
Almost no two lagoon pools are the same. These are typically very custom construction jobs, so you can create something really unique that stands out from other freeform pools and reflects your environment and personality.
Watch Outs
Most of the disadvantages of lagoon pools are associated with cost. Typically, this style of pool comes with a lot more landscaping, water features, a bigger pool size, and other elements that increase the initial construction cost and ongoing maintenance cost. Lagoon pools can cost upwards of $100,000 with several intricate design features.
Lagoon Pool Design Ideas
Here’s a lagoon-style pool I designed and built several years ago. I love the natural stone and greenery around the pool.
The natural rocks and landscaping around this swimming pool I built create a hidden lagoon feel.
Similar to the first photo, I love adding big boulders in the middle of the pool. Here’s a pool I installed with that feature and lots of natural landscaping.
The natural landscaping around this pool is beautiful as well.
While the tile isn’t a traditional lagoon pool, I love how the bushes come right to the edge of the pool. It gives it a very natural spring look.
You can also incorporate an infinity wall to your lagoon pool.
The stone coping around the pool’s edge here is a nice touch.
Lagoon pools often have large waterfalls and other features, like the one shown here.
I love how the trees hang over the pool in this photo, creating a very intimate jungle environment.
This small lagoon pool has great natural landscaping around it.
I mentioned above that lagoon pools can get pretty extravagant. Well, Lucas Lagoons pools are about as wild as they get. Here’s an example of one they built with a ton of crazy water features.
Installing a Lagoon Pool
The construction process for installing a lagoon pool is much like any other swimming pool. However, there are a couple of areas to pay close attention to.
First, make sure you give your builder a lot of inspiration for the design concept you want and send them all of the potential features you want or don’t want. This information will help them a ton when they are drawing potential designs.
Second, look at the swimming pool building codes in your local area. Given the typically larger size of lagoon pools, you could be creeping up toward the limits of how far away a pool needs to be from your house or fence.
Need Help Building Your Pool?
I offer design consulting services to help you build your ideal pool. I'll work with your contractor, create build-ready designs and specs, and much more.
Have any questions about lagoon pools? Let me know; always happy to lend a hand. For more design inspiration, head to my main pool design concepts and ideas page.
