A Backyard with Room to Dream

Every month Aviva Pools shines a spotlight on a project that shows off what thoughtful design and skilled craftsmanship can do for a backyard. For our July 2026 winning installation, the honor goes to a stunning Apex 40 installed by AquaPools in Round Mountain, Texas, just outside Marble Falls in the heart of the Texas Hill Country.

The homeowners had a wide-open canvas to work with, including several acres with nothing yet planned for the yard. That kind of blank slate gave AquaPools designer and backyard designer Ryan Gholston the freedom to build something truly custom from the ground up.

AT A GLANCE

  • Award & Location: Aviva Pools named an Apex 40 installation by AquaPools in Round Mountain, Texas, as its July 2026 Pool of the Month.
  • Design & Layout: Built on a multi-acre lot, the design features an Apex 40 pool in Gibraltar Gray surrounded by ivory travertine decking, a cool deck coating, deck jets, and LED lighting.
  • Framed View: Designer Ryan Gholston centered the auxiliary Oracle Spa and its spillover precisely with the living room window to frame the Texas Hill Country view.
  • Equipment & Automation: The pool uses a Hayward salt chlorination system, a low ambient heat pump chiller, and an OmniLogic automation system for remote smartphone/panel control.
  • Key to Success: Close communication between the builder and homeowners ensured design revisions went smoothly, resulting in a resort-style backyard layout.

The Apex 40 backyard pool in Gibraltar Gray

Designed Around the View

One of the most thoughtful touches on this project is easy to miss at first glance. The auxiliary Oracle Spa and its spillover sit centered perfectly on the home’s back window, lining up exactly with the view from the living room. It was a small detail with a big payoff, turning every glance out that window into a look at a perfectly framed water feature.

The pool itself is finished in Gibraltar Grey and paired with ivory travertine decking, a matching one-foot cantilevered coping, and a cool deck coating that ties the whole surround together for a clean and elegant look throughout the space. Two sets of deck jets and an auxiliary spa with six spa jets add movement and sound without overwhelming the space, a balance Gholston worked closely with the homeowners to dial in.

Lighting rounds out the ambiance, with two LED lights in the pool and one in the spa, so the space is just as inviting after the sun goes down.

Equipment Built to Perform

Behind the scenes, this pool runs on Hayward equipment with a salt chlorination system and an OmniLogic automation upgrade, giving the homeowners full control over their jets and lighting from their phone or a wall panel. A low ambient heat pump chiller keeps the water comfortable in every season, and two additional automatic valves were added to make sure every function, from the spa spillover to the deck jets, works exactly as it should.

AquaPools of Texas win July 2026 Pool of the month

A Project Built on Communication

Every custom pool comes with decisions to make, and this one saw its fair share of design revisions as the team worked to get every detail right, from the placement of the deck jets to the optimum spot for suction points in the pool. Gholston credits close, constant communication with the homeowners for the smooth way the project came together in the end.

“That’s what I think people like most about what we do here, the level of communication you get,” Gholston said. “These are all normal challenges; this is all part of the construction of getting a pool, and then you push them over the finish line, and they’re happy.”

The Result

The finished pool is exactly what the homeowners hoped for, a polished, resort-style backyard that suits the scale of their property and the view from their own living room. It is easy to see why The Apex 40 earned the spot as Aviva Pools’ Pool of the Month for July 2026.

Ready to start designing a backyard of your own? Reach out to your local Aviva Pools dealer to get started.