Lazy Rivers, Water Slides—Homeowners Are Splashing out to Bring the Family Together

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Edward and Darlene Lowe amassed 1,251 acres in Arcadia, Florida, over more than a decade to create their family retreat, Long River Ranch. Edward, the founder of Kitty Litter, who passed away in 1995, came up with the idea of a grand house with a swimming pool and a lazy-river-style pool accessible from five individual guesthouses—a sprawling water feature the couple called the Oasis.

“The main house has a swimming pool with tables set in a shallow wading area so you can eat lunch in the water,” says Paul Meador, a broker with SVN | Saunders Ralston Dantzler Real Estate in Lakeland, Florida, the agent for Long River Ranch, which is listed for $19.57 million. A 10-person hot tub connects to the main pool, which is next to a pool house with a kitchen, a bedroom, and a bathroom, he says.

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While many families are happy with burgers in the backyard, those with the means to create an ideal spot for multiple generations to relax together are more likely to gather around a swimming pool fit for a theme park or a five-star resort.

Family and friends who visited the Lowes at their ranch could stay in one of the five one-bedroom guesthouses in the Oasis, which are connected by walkways under an open beamed roof, Meador says.

“The Lowes, their children, and their grandchildren could swim around the lazy-river pool from one building to another, plus each guesthouse has a glass door to that pool,” Meador says. “The main house also has a pond built underneath a walkway that leads to [two] offices.”

While the water amenities, which also include stocked fishponds, attracted extended family and friends to the property, the Lowes carefully designed the house with gathering areas for entertaining a crowd as well as separate accommodations for privacy.

Hollywood Glamour in Beverly Hills

Perhaps one of the most lush and opulent swimming pools in California is one built for Jeffrey Franklin, creator of the Full House TV sitcom.

“I call this the ‘house that ‘Full House’ built,’” Franklin says of his home in Beverly Hills, currently listed for sale at $54.995 million. “It took five years to complete, but in the end, it had everything on my wish list.”

That wish list included a mansion with nine bedrooms and 18 bathrooms for friends and family set on 3.6 acres with a 75-yard-long pool with waterfalls and two hot tubs, says Jade Mills, a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker Realty in Beverly Hills who is co-listing the property with Josh Altman of Douglas Elliman.

“I wanted this house to feel like you’re in Hawaii without having to fly to Hawaii,” Franklin says. “The main pool has three waterfalls and feeds into a lazy river that connects to an infinity-edge pool overlooking L.A. and the Pacific Ocean.”

Other water features include a 35-foot water slide into a deep pool, a grotto tucked underneath a waterfall with a swim-up bar, a lounge area, and a hot tub. The lazy river has a window underneath the water to see into a koi pond in the middle of the pool. To facilitate entertaining, a full outdoor kitchen with a bar, a fireplace, a balcony, and a big-screen TV are nearby. While Franklin once hosted 700 people at the property, he also made sure it was divided into smaller spaces to feel cozy.

“I wanted people to not feel like they’re in a water park even if they kind of are,” he says.

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While most Southern California luxury homes include a pool, very few have a slide or the other over-the-top features of the Cielo Estate, Mills says.

It’s worth noting that Franklin’s wild amenities aren’t the first thing to make the Los Angeles address headline-worthy. At one point, the property was better known as the site where followers of Charles Manson murdered Sharon Tate and four other people in 1969.

Personalized Pools and Property Values

For most families who design an extravagant swimming pool such as Franklin or the Lowes, the goal is to create a magnet for their friends, children, and grandchildren to visit.

“My wife was afraid of pools for most of our 40 years of marriage, but when I pointed out that our grandkids would visit every weekend if we bought a house with a pool, she quickly agreed,” says Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of Miller Samuel Inc. Real Estate Appraisers and Consultants. “Thankfully, it worked. It’s just a nice hook to bring everyone to our place.”

However, a swimming pool doesn’t necessarily add value to a property, especially if it’s highly customized, Miller says.

“In certain segments of the luxury market, a pool is expected, so having one is just more of a break-even item rather than something that adds value,” he says. “If something is wildly personalized it won’t necessarily translate to a wide pool of buyers, so it can be a slight detriment to the property value.”

Twin Pools at Florida Estate

Robert Lewin relishes time spent with his extended family so much that he built two pools to accommodate them in Southwest Ranches near Fort Lauderdale.

“My twin brother and I used to live four houses apart, but then we built two houses on the same 11-acre site,” says Lewin, an attorney. “We built one house for my wife and I and our four daughters, and then, on the other side of a four-acre lake, we built a house for my brother Harley, his wife, and his two sons.”

The family compound includes two French Country–style mansions with a total of 12 bedrooms and 15 bathrooms. The entire property is listed for sale at $47 million.

“I’m the youngest of nine kids, and my wife has six siblings, so we created this compound to have a place where the entire extended family could gather for Passover, Easter, and vacations,” Lewin says. “We typically have around 65 family members in our house for holidays and birthday parties.”

Each of the two mansions has its own swimming pool. The lake, which is stocked with peacock bass for fishing, accommodates canoes, kayaks, and paddle boats.

“The pools are resort-size, and we put a volleyball net in the middle of one so everyone can play in the pool,” Lewin says. “We also put fire pits, barbecues, hibachis, and a pizza oven on the grounds for parties.”

Jill Eber, a real estate agent with The Jills Zeder Group at Coldwell Banker Realty in Miami, says compounds like this, especially with land and recreational amenities, have become even more sought-after since the pandemic.

“Each of the houses has this fun and inviting feeling with the pools and outdoor amenities, and then they have an arcade-game room plus a movie theater with a candy-and-popcorn room, too,” Eber says.

A Family Oasis in Mexico

Marc Schechter, a 56-year-old investment advisor from Detroit, is following in his parents’ footsteps with a new compound in One&Only Mandarina Private Homes Riviera Nayarit on the Pacific Coast of Mexico.

“My parents bought a home decades ago in Mexico, and it was just this great bonding element when my cousins and aunts and uncles would all come together there,” Schechter says. “Now my kids are all in their 20s and live in New York, so we decided to build our own property to bring everyone together for vacations.”

Initially, Schechter and his wife planned to build an eight-bedroom home, but then they opted to build two adjacent homes, each with their own pool.

“One has four bedrooms and the other has six bedrooms, so there’s privacy for everyone, but there’s also all this outdoor living space around the pools where we can be together,” he says. “It was very important to us to have a lot of terrace space around the infinity pools, so we added an extra 200-square-foot seating area outside.”

The Schechters also built a fire pit with seating for 20 people in between the two houses as an extra destination for entertaining.

Human Aquariums

Jerry Smith and Josh Fritz have seen it all when it comes to extravagant swimming pools. Their Grand Junction, Colorado–based business, American Sealants, installs acrylic windows that convert swimming pools into human aquariums for luxury homes.

“We’re installing acrylic windows on two sides of the pool that separates it from a shark tank, so it looks like you’re swimming with the sharks,” Smith says. “We built another pool with four acrylic windows next to an entertaining area, so the water looks like it ripples overhead when the pool lights are on.”

Acrylic windows can be used in myriad ways for swimming pools, limited only by the homeowners’ imagination and their budget. The least expensive option, installing an acrylic window with a view into a pool, costs from $20,000 to $50,000, Fritz says. Other projects can cost more than $1 million.

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“It cost about $30,000 to install acrylic sides to a small round spa with water flowing into the pool at one house,” he says. “One of the more common things we do is build a gigantic acrylic square in the middle of a pool with a fire pit in the center reached by acrylic stepping stones, so it looks like the fire is coming out of the water.”

Smith and Fritz built an acrylic bottom for a swimming pool in Switzerland so swimmers could see the Dale Chihuly glass art displayed underneath it, a project that cost about $1 million.

Whether it includes a human aquarium or not, an over-the-top swimming pool can provide an eye-catching focal point for a mansion along with a playful place for multiple generations to enjoy.

This story originally appeared in the Summer 2023 issue of Mansion Global Experience Luxury.

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