2021 Spa of the Year

GOLD AWARD

Beechworth Custom Pools

The site for this spa is situated in North-East Victoria, overlooking the King River. The design brief from the owners was very specific - the view of the river was the over-arching consideration. There was to be uninterrupted sightlines from the bedroom, the bath, and the spa area across to the bend in the river.

As the land between the house and the riverbank was flat, the design challenge was to comply with isolation pool fencing requirements. The solution - excavate the front section of the spa area to provide a minimum 1200mm wall along the front, which was then raked back to meet the ground level and planted out. This meant that there was no interruption to the sight lines at the front of the spa area. The spa was then surrounded with Murray Pine decking to match the existing house. The pool fence was installed in a stainless channel, top set down to disappear into the decking level. There were minimal gaps in the fencing to provide protection against snakes making their way from the river into the spa area. The deck around the spa ran up to the 1200mm drop, which also created a challenge for designers to ensure protection for pedestrians from toppling over the wall edge. In conjunction with the Building Surveyor, Beechworth Custom Pools were able to design and build some low planter boxes along the edge, categorising that area as a non-walkway. This meant that the entirety of the river-facing section of the project (around 9.000m) was unencumbered by any visual obstacles. The spa itself was orientated entirely towards the view of the river. There are seats along the house sides only, with 16 spa jets connected to two boost pumps. There is also a filtration/heating line, a separate silkflow waterfall with its own pump, plus a separate suction and return for the heat pump line. It was important to the client that there was no visual impact on the view to the river. Therefore, controls were hidden and designed using a “Smart Spa” with all pumps, lights, water quality and temperature controls managed via voice commands and an App through Google Home and Amazon Alexa.

The spa is fully tiled in Sukabumi 100mm tiles, including the top coping level. All of the design works and surrounding works were carried out by Beechworth Custom Pools.