Background
The client, homeowner of this quarter-acre, lake front property overlooking Lake Erie in Cleveland, Ohio, informed Patrick Cloonan, RLA, of the landscape architecture firm, Cloonan Design Services, Inc. that there was a 20' x 40' pool shell with an 8' x 8' hot tub already poured in the backyard, but he was not thrilled with the direction that the project was going and was looking for a splash of creativity in his backyard oasis.

"He was panicking because he had the shell of the pool that a contractor installed with a hot tub glued to the edge, but it lacked creativity," Cloonan said. "The client then said, 'I want the 'wow factor' that I see on your website and I want it to be in a magazine!'"

Cloonan, whose company will celebrate 30 years of business in 2021, more than delivered on that request. Set on a beautiful plot of land adjacent to Lake Erie, Cloonan and his team of talented contractors got to work.

Challenges
As a result of the project being an hour and a half away from the firm's office, the first hurdle Cloonan faced was integrating his team with some of the local team that had already been on site. He needed to make the decision to keep the team or let them go. Most of the team stayed and were happy to have some field leadership and direction.

In the spring of 2020, Cloonan had four fake palm trees shipped that were made out of fiberglass and steel and he strategically placed them around the property.

 

However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the supplier who was supposed to assemble and install the palm trees was not able to make it to the job, so instead, Cloonan's team had to learn on the fly in order to get the trees installed before the reveal.

"That was new to our team, but they did a great job," Cloonan said.
Since this site used to be part of Lake Erie, the next obstacle was to secure a structural engineer in order to design a foundation for the new layout of patios, steps, deck and outdoor kitchen. In order to solve the issue of securing the development to virgin ground, Cloonan and his team needed to drive 47 additional I-Beams 25 feet into the ground and secure them to the yard by pouring a 24-inch concrete mat around them. Due to the lack of access to the rear yard, all of the work for the foundation was done from a barge that was brought in through the bay.

"This was not an easy project, between the complexity of the foundation and merging my team with the local team - it took a lot of leadership and patience," Cloonan said.

Once the pylons were all in place, the crew moved on to construct the patio and the redesign of the pool.

Pool
Cloonan addressed the design of the pool with the goal of transforming radial steps into rectilinear ones to keep the design consistent with the patio steps. He also added a bar with underwater barstools, but one of the main elements was outside of the pool in the vanishing edge pit. Cloonan demolished the existing pit and made it about 4 feet wider, extended it around the corner to connect to the hot tub and added steppingstone lighting and a water weir.
The client explicitly requested a 'wow factor' from Cloonan and that was delivered in the form of a one-of-a-kind fire pit sculpture next to the pool.

Fire Pit
The team had two, 3,000-pound blocks of Wisconsin limestone imported and craned in to serve as the barrier for the fire pit. Cloonan also took some of his team and went to a local quarry in Sandusky, Ohio to pick out some native unrefined boulders and juxtaposed them against the formed and honed limestone blocks. With the I-Beam in the center and the limestone surrounding it, it was time for Cloonan to bring in a sculptor to help bring the vision of the feature to fruition.

Matthew Albright, who has worked with Cloonan before, constructed a massive, 80-pound boulder out of welded metal to place in the center of the fire pit. Albright used 6,100 feet of welded wire, plus over 12,000 welds to create the Corten boulder and bring it to life. Sliced into the boulder at the pinnacle of the sculpture was the centerpiece of the entire yard. The client is the owner of a business called "Excalibur Autobody" and Cloonan and his team could not think of a better way to reflect that than to put the sword "Excalibur" in the center of the fire feature. Albright fashioned the sword using electro-polished marine-grade stainless steel in order to create this incredible centerpiece.

"We then fabricated custom fire jets to have fire come out of the boulder near the sword and the circle of fire throughout the stone enclosure," Cloonan said. "We have about a million BTU's of gas feeding this pit, so needless to say, it will keep you warm on the cool lakeside nights in Sandusky."

Once the sculpture was in place, Cloonan and his team continued work on the rest of the property, installing the limestone patio, landscaping, fence, irrigation, sound, and lighting.

Conclusion
Despite a change in pool construction companies midway through the build, Covid-19 and other challenges, Cloonan and his team delivered a truly one-of-a-kind backyard. The client got what they wanted and could not be more excited about their backyard oasis.

The bottom line, as Cloonan says, "Nothing great comes easy! We fought through the struggles and could not be more proud of the final outcome!"

As seen in LASN magazine, February 2021.