Susie Warwick - Peloponnese - Greece
Susie and Alban Warwick have a property in the Peloponnese. Susie first heard about swimming ponds in 2003 when, as a member of the Mediterranean Garden Society, she read about the concept in a newsletter.
“At the time, we had a house in the mountains in Greece, where we thought any kind of pool would be frowned upon,“ she says. “However, we moved to the coast (in the Southern Peloponnese) and had a house built on a raised site. It is quite difficult to climb down to the beach, so we thought a swimming pond there would be brilliant for us.”
Why not a conventional pool? “I hate that artificial blue look. I hate flying over hot countries and seeing all that blue concrete.”
We built this as a “part-build” project – a local construction company carried out excavation and installed the concrete shell according to our design specifications, and we came in for the installation of the filtration system itself.
This part-build model works very well on our projects outside the UK. “Everything that fell within Gartenart’s remit was perfect. They kept to their costings and everything arrived on time.”
As for the pool in use, “it’s been an absolute joy,” she says. “The most appealing thing about the pond, for me, is the fresh water. The sea water is too salty and I hate it in my eyes, and as for chemicals, well, none of us wants to be swimming in chlorine any more. Also we don’t have to change the water as you do with a conventional pool.”
“It’s so lovely being in the water, looking out to sea surrounded by big, white water lilies. It’s actually better than I thought it would ever be.”
