We Build Legendary Pools

Welcome! If you’ve just found our website you are in for a treat! Sometimes people start searching for pool companies because they want a swimming pool. Sometimes it’s to dream a bit for the future, and sometimes it’s because there’s this feeling that there’s more to life that is possible. We’re here to tell you, and better yet, we’ll show you. It is possible.

We all have that desire. The one that some of us tap into more than others. The one that gets us up in the morning and gives us hope for the future. The one that makes us grateful for all that we have.

It’s that desire to add more to life. More experiences. More moments. More memories. More Yummy.

Yummy means dreaming again. Smiling more. Enjoying our friends, our family, and our best pet friends. You’ll find us with our “legendary” golden retrievers running around as we work on building and servicing our swimming pools. Sometimes they get their own video releases, because, let’s face it – they are awesome!

Yummy, or Living in the Yummy as Al Curtis, the pool guy likes to embrace, means to enjoy a style of life. A style of life where we surround ourselves with things that we love, experiences we enjoy, and add to all of those every day. This differs greatly from “lifestyle”. We won’t get into that yet, but if you peek around at our photos, messages and videos, we think you’ll get a sense of what we mean.

We’ve heard that once people land on our website their imagination begins all over again. Those childhood dreams come rushing back. The times in life that we can suspend reality and believe in magic, just for a moment start to inspire us again. The belief that impossible may just be possible, and even better, possible for them, possible for you. Best of all, that encouragement to dream a bit more comes rushing back in.

You are here. Something has brought you here, to our site. To explore! To imagine! To begin to dream about what more is possible.

Please do, we hope you’ll love your journey with us here. It starts now: Living Legendary.

Hybrid Swimming Pools

What is a hybrid swimming Pool? It is a unique combination of a vinyl liner pool and a gunite swimming pool imagined and invented by Al Curtis, to fill a unique customer need. Our team has pioneered this building style (yes, right here in Michigan!) Our pools have been featured nationally, winning awards, being written up in our industry magazines, and talked about at national and international pool shows – where we share our way with other builders looking to create a new niche in their area. The learning curve of how we build is both complex and fundamentally simple at the same time. As a builder with knowledge and experience building both vinyl liner and gunite pools, Al is uniquely positioned to have developed this style of pool, recognized as an industry leader, and really, one-of-a-kind {in the world}.

Hybrid swimming pools blend the best of both worlds, vinyl and gunite. The way we build them creates a comfortable main body of water in the traditional vinyl liner, with walls either constructed with standard steel walls, or sometimes even concrete walls. The features added to the pool are then done in “gunite” where we use shotcrete to create the shapes of the features and waterfalls, and then we hand mix and carve on site the finished design. Some of our crazy cool pool features include swim in grottos, pirate ships as grottos, the waterfall and slide, boats as a dry seating area on perched on the edge of the pool, swim up bars, sun ledges, tanning ledges, spill over waterfalls, and so many more we could go on for days.

You don’t build a pool this way for any reason related to price. These swimming pools are built for form, function, aesthetics, creativity and comfort. Your friends won’t even be able to tell what type of pool you had built, though it’ll likely have ceramic tile which people are used to seeing in a gunite pool. They’ll be too busy looking at everything and trying to take it all in that a question of “what type of pool is it?” becomes a bit too ordinary…

We are based in southeastern Michigan, and build in your average back yard. Our clients are looking for something a bit more Legendary than your average swimming pool, and are focused on the experiences that will be created in the backyard environment.

Now may be a good time to mention we’re also not your “typical” construction company. We get things constructed all right – we do it with brawn, strength, and beauty. Our construction crew is comprised of more women than men.

Our decision making process involves how we feel during every step of the process. We also don’t do any of this because we have to, we want to.

In a world where anything is possible, we are looking for Spectacular. Amazing. Fun. Exciting. Enchanting. We want to love our clients (you) more every day. We want you to love our team more every day.

There are some people people who are looking for a backyard swimming pool where the kids and the family can jump in and have a good time. We love those pools too! (We just may need to suggest the perfect company to build that pool for you!) Once you have it though, we have a full service company located at www.AskthePoolGuy.com, where we can work on any type of inground pool, and all brands and types of pool systems.

We also build only one rectangle pool a decade, so if you’re looking for a standard rectangle with an auto cover you’d better work on your storytelling ability to convince us why to consider working with you, or choose one of our talented rectangle pool building friends. *Side note: we don’t share any of our philosophy to be arrogant – we do it to be straightforward about our certain way, what we do, and what we don’t do. Isn’t the world a better place when we can have these up front conversations?

Whether it’s building pools, or servicing swimming pools, we enjoy and are really good at what we do. We also know which jobs and clients best fit what we offer, and we are smart enough to refer things we don’t do to other companies and people who are really good at those.

If you are looking for a great swimming pool and you’re not quite sure which way to go, you can give us a call and we’ll be happy to make some suggestions. If you love what you see here on our site, give us a call or send a note and we can start the process of designing and building your backyard Legendary Escape.

Our Process

If you are interested in a Legendary Escape, here is the process. First, reach out to us to let us know what you are looking for. On your first call we’ll likely ask you a ton of questions…what are you looking for? What did you like that you saw on our website? What are the features you’d like in a swimming pool? How did you find us? What is your time frame? and What is your Budget?

We are also in this for our long term relationship. We’ll have our team in your yard during your build for at least two to four months, or longer, depending on the complexity of your project. We also know that we’ll want a mutually beneficial long term relationship with you as part of our “Legendary Owners Family” as we help you care for your pool and guide you in maintenance and service your pool will need.

We always ask the big questions up front, which are: what are you looking for in the scope of a project, and what is your budget. Since we are so highly specialized and art based, we only take on a specific number of projects a year. They need to fit both our project size (we rarely build simple), and the budget for the scope of the project needs to be healthy enough for it to be created. Visit our post about budget planning to learn more about this.

We would like to make sure that you are comfortable with what it will cost to create your Legendary Escape, and if you have a budget range outside of ours that you are more comfortable in, we want to make the recommendation of who could build a super pool – for you!

You May be Surprised by this:

You may be surprised to find out when we ask you questions that we’ll be really excited to find out about what your interests and hobbies are. We want to know where you like to travel, vacation, and what you find fun and relaxing. Our pools cover a wide variety of genres, and our team is always excited to try something new. We want to love what we do, as much as we want you to love it, so the more creative, the better!

You may also be surprised to find out (or maybe not ;o) that our favorite clients are seeking a “style of life” rather than a “lifestyle”. It’s not about impressing your neighbors. Our environments are to spend time with people you care about, and to enjoy your time while immersed in the space. On your best day next to our pool we hope you get lost in your imagination. Or pretend you are a kid again going down the water slide. Or you create memories with your family that they will take with them for the rest of their life.

We joke a lot that when we go to take pictures of our pool we spend an hour cleaning up around them because they are used to much! We build the comfy couch, not the formal couch you couldn’t sit on that was always covered in plastic. There will be floaties, toys, goggles, towels and all the swimming accessories around our projects (and we wouldn’t change a thing!)

Most of our favorite pool builds are located in the back yard of homes we could describe as modest, often on dirt roads, sometimes in subdivisions, and with people who are much like we are. Hard working, single or dual income homes with entrepreneurs, teachers, accountants, dentists, sales people, and stay at home parents.

Once we do the initial call where we get to know what you are looking for, you’ll typically get a call from Sandi, our coordinator of everything. She’ll go more into detail about your time frame, and what you are looking for. She is also the keeper of the Pool Guy (Al Curtis)’s schedule, and wants to make sure you are ready for the next step. We also want to make sure we are a personality fit – both ways.

We are always happy to talk about what you are looking to build. We’d be excited to plan your pool if it is for this season coming up, or if you need a little more time and your project is a year or two down the road. Just don’t wait too long…memories are going to be happening either way ;o)

Our team creates in our creative, artistic, organic way. It’s sometimes hard to explain what that means, so let some of our clients introduce us to you:

Get to know Legendary Escapes:

The Shows in Season One – Episodes