As you scroll thru pictures of famous people’s homes, the pools cease to look like pools. When no one says no, they begin to resemble loud, purposeful, sometimes ridiculous arguments about what money can accomplish that is precisely the point. The most ostentatious swimming pools ever constructed for celebrities have nothing to do with swimming. They are about spectacle, sometimes just the sheer excitement of creating something no one asked for comfort taken to its logical extreme.
Consider the Montecito estate of Jeff Bridges. In contrast to what one might anticipate from a Hollywood icon, the pool there doesn’t make an announcement. It is designed to follow a naturally occurring stone-edged stream that flows thru the property and is fed by several waterfalls. If you didn’t know what it was, you might think it was a remnant of nature.
Alongside it is an artificial garden and an outdoor fireplace that’s close enough for dinner. Bridges’ decision to host his daughter’s wedding by the pool speaks volumes about the kind of ambiance it fosters one that is more of a haven than a spectacle. Perhaps when it stops trying so hard, this is what true luxury looks like.
The other end of the spectrum is also present. The 54-foot mosaic-tiled pool at the former Versace mansion in Miami was created using imported Italian tiles that were layered with 24-karat gold. It feels pricey just to look at pictures of it. This is not a subtle or pretentious situation. It’s overindulgent to the point of confrontation. Either you adore it or you think it’s a little absurd. Most likely both.
Perhaps the most entertaining of them all is Shaquille O’Neal’s pool. The entire area, which is connected to a rock waterfall feature, resembles something from a jungle expedition movie. It’s a hidden creek that you might happen upon while trekking thru dense forest because Shaq is over seven feet tall, the pool descends fifteen feet, which is deep enough for proper dives. As if the pool wasn’t enough water for one property, Lake Butler is located just off his dock. This pool seems more impressive because Shaq built it with the intention of using it rather than impressing others.
The Jupiter Island compound owned by Celine Dion adopts a completely different strategy. The estate, which was custom-built in 2010, has two pools connected by what can only be called a private water park the kind of water features you’d typically find at a public recreation center rather than someone’s backyard. Even a man-made beach is present. It’s difficult not to imagine how that project’s construction meetings sounded. “And then, next to the second pool, we’ll add a beach” . That had to be said aloud by someone.
The Olympic-sized pool with built-in cabanas in Kylie Jenner’s allegedly $36.5 million Holmby Hills compound serves as both a dining area and a backdrop for selfies. A twelve-foot-deep lagoon with a slide and spacious natural rock waterfalls encircling canyon views can be found at Mark Wahlberg’s former Hollywood Hills estate.
The legendary Colombian football player Carlos Valderrama built a $300,000 pool with a grotto and a waterfall water slide in his Tarzana home. Over the years, the property has become famous for hosting celebrity parties. Even Adam Levine, whose taste tends to be more subdued, sits at a pool that resembles nothing geometrically recognizable and looks out at undulating hills from a $18 million terrace where the scenery speaks for itself.
And, of course, there is David Copperfield. His 63-hectare, over $17 million private island resort in the Bahamas has an infinity pool, a spa, a movie theater, a golf simulator a vanishing sand bar. For a magician, the sand bar part seems almost too obvious, but that’s probably the idea. Some people are unable to control themselves.
Even tho the numbers are astounding, there is more to these pools than just the money behind them. Each one reveals something about the owner’s conceit, playfulness, taste, or just the desire to create a private world that is inaccessible to the outside world. In Hollywood culture, swimming pools have been status symbols for decades. Even tho they are covered in gold, these feel more intimate than that.