The New American Home pool: a pool among pools graces this year's National Association of Home Builders' show home

In January, Baldwin Park, Fla., experienced firsthand the power of fire and ice.

At The New American Home, one of approximately 15 show homes on display during January's International Builders' Show in Orlando, visitors got to see the latest and greatest in home construction, design and gadgetry. But a courtyard held the homes' true showcase: a cool blue slot-overflow pool, equipped with laminar fountains and sunshelf large enough to hold furniture--and a fireplace, to add elemental contrast at night. It's one of the first perimeter-overflow pools in that area.

"The builder worried whether this was going to be good enough for the home," said Michael D. Manley, president/CEO of Champagne Aquatech Pools of Florida, a Pool & Spa News Top Builder based in Sanford. "My challenge back was: 'Is this home going to be good enough for the pool?'"

That's like asking if the [H.sub.2] is good enough for the O. There was no true backyard, so the architect wrapped the $2.5-million house around the pool's courtyard.

The entire pool interior was blanketed in meticulously set 1-by-1-inch azure glass mosaic tile. The pristine water, maintained by an oversized filter, enhances the icy blue feel. An umbrella cools the sunshelf in the heat of midday.

At night, ice gives way to fire. A carved limestone gas-log fireplace, set at the far side of the pool, has a sheet waterfall flowing in front of the fire box. A fire pit and tiki torch that snaps into the umbrella hole raise the heat quotient. Fiberoptic lighting showcases the laminar fountains.

The pool also blends Old World with the modern. This aspect of the design takes a cue from the 9,000-square-foot house, which was coordinated by the National Association of Home Builders and sponsored in part by Builder, a sister publication of Pool & Spa News.

It was important to the developer that the home look as if it belonged in pre-1940s Orlando. The architect, Ed Binkley, and the home builder, Kim Goehring, toured the city's historic districts and took photos to determine the predominant style. "We came back and threw 200 or so photos on the table, and about 75 percent were Mediterranean," Binkley said.

The pool, designed by Miami's Aquatic Consultants, also has a Mediterranean form with minimal ornament. The total-perimeter overflow system provides a touch of the modern.

It wasn't easy to build. Last year's onslaught of hurricanes shrank the pool's construction schedule to less than eight weeks. "That's a pool that would normally take every bit of four to five months to build," Manley said.

In this project, the gutters presented an unusually large challenge. They were to be made of poured concrete, with a stainless steel support system on top. However, after the hurricanes, the right grade of stainless steel was in short supply and the crews had to fabricate the pieces themselves. After shooting the pool, they cut Pegboard templates to fit its contours. Then they took the templates to the shop and cut marine-grade steel sheet into shape with a plasma cutter, a tool normally used to cut metal for cars, airplanes and other large applications.

"The marinas wouldn't do it for us because they didn't have the manpower--or be cause of hurricanes, they were down," Manley said. "We had to invent at the same time we built the pool."

The $140,000 finished product put to rest any doubts that home builder Kim Goehring had. "We were going to have 15,000 of our peers coming through from the International Builders' Show," said the president of Goehring & Morgan Construction in Orlando. "We were thinking bigger and grander: Do we do waterfalls with water falling down stone, and fire coming out of it? It was simplistic on paper, so I didn't think it was going to pop."

Now he's a convert to the perimeter overflow concept. "It's the prettiest pool I've ever seen," he enthused.

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