LAP OF LUXURY
A big house demands a pool with presence, and the spectacular 20,000-square-foot Casey Key home—actually 35,000 square feet when all the outdoor terraces and garages are factored in—that architect Cliff Scholz and contractor Michael Walker created for a pair of transplanted Midwesterners cried out for a water element to take one’s breath away.

The homeowner is a serious swimmer, so a lap pool was definitely in order. But not just any straight-arrow lap pool. This one is 70 feet long, with hourglass curves that echo the rounded arcs of the home. A beach entry at the eastern edge allows easy access; a grotto area covered by an oculus opening surrounded by tropical plants offers shade from the sun, and a negative edge at the western terminus gives the illusion of being able to swim off toward Mexico. The pool is spanned by a romantic arched bridge leading from the main house to the 1,500-square-foot guest cabana.

“It’s a big space but it’s very oriented to a human scale,” says Scholz, who labored with his design team for four years on the design and construction of the home and pool. “You could put 50 people on the pool deck or three people, and it still feels right.”

After three years of daily dips, the homeowner earlier this year challenged the design team to solve two issues: winter breezes off the Gulf and solar overheating in the summer. Scholz and Walker devised a clever enclosure made of sliding glass doors for the western, windier half of the pool. The owner can control the elements with a quick opening or closing of the new glass doors. Best of all, the enclosure looks like it was part of the original design.

A POOL WITH A VIEW
Hard to believe this shimmering jewel box of a pool and lawn was a 40-foot lap pool surrounded by dull sheets of concrete just a couple of months ago. “The original pool had a nice layout—a kiddie pool at one end and a Jacuzzi at the other. But we’re not big swimmers, and the glare off the concrete was terrible,” says Chris Cogan, who, with his wife, Aimee, spent more than three years transforming their 10-year-old Harbor Acres bayfront home into an authentic Mediterranean manse.

The Cogans replaced the big lap pool with a considerably smaller 360-degree raised pool with a vanishing edge and moved it to the westernmost part of the property, right on the harbor. Iridescent glass tiles in seven different shades of blue line the entire pool interior; a Medusa head made of handmade tiles decorates the sun deck floor. Around the outside of the pool are copper and clear blue glass tiles in a basket weave pattern that glimmer in the late afternoon sun. Instead of concrete, a long swath of grass, flanked with Italian cypress trees and Medjool palms, separates the pool from a gazebo at the eastern end.

A self-described perfectionist, Cogan designed the entire redo. He’s had plenty of experience; his Orlando-based Cogan Development Company builds four- and five-star resort hotels around the world.

BIG DIPPER
It makes sense that an atmospheric, Moorish-themed pool would be located within shouting distance of the Ringling Museum. Set behind tall cypress gates in the entry courtyard of a mini-estate designed by the husband and wife owners, the pool sets the stage for the eclectic, completely original home beyond.

The couple drew design inspiration from their travels to Spain and Morocco—“something spicy,” says the wife. Floors built of multicolored, distressed Italian ceramic tiles (“We picked every color in the showroom,” she says) and a riot of tropical plants—white birds of paradise, raphis palms, crotons, philodendrons of all types—surround the black sunstone saltwater pool. The guest cabana wall that abuts it was painted a bright Moroccan gold.

Best of all, every room in the house commands pool and courtyard views. “When the weather’s nice,” she says, “we open all the doors and experience the sounds and smells.”

With four sitting ledges, waterspouts and a spa with waterfall wall that’s clad in the same multicolored tiles, the pool is a hedonistic retreat, but the owners admit they don’t actually swim in it. “We’re dippers; we dip after doing our gardening,” she says. “The pool was built for beauty and for atmosphere. It’s a bonus if you get in it.”