A visit from the ‘Pool Master’: Redwood City couple gets TV show-styled backyard

Dede Loftus, 44, and her husband Bill, 47, are both from the area — Menlo Park and Redwood City, respectively — and recently moved with their four children to the Emerald Hills neighborhood where they could have more acreage. That acreage meant there was room for a pool, but that wasn’t necessarily part of the plan until the “Pool Master” inspired them.

“I always wanted a pool, and [Bill] kept saying no,” Dede said. “So he saw the show and he was watching with the kids and they were saying we should do that and he said, ‘Sure, if that guy builds it, we can get a pool.’ Then they told me and I secretly applied to the show.”

Archer-Wills and his crew visited the Loftus home in November to design and install one of the show’s more challenging projects.

The Loftuses were looking for a pool big enough to entertain up to 50 children, and a bar for the parents, with a budget of $125,000. Their property, about a third of an acre, occupied mostly by the main house, a guesthouse and a paved patio area, proved a tight fit.

“There was no room even for machinery to start with,” Archer-Wills said. “The restrictions imposed by the town meant that we couldn’t build within a certain distance of the house or the boundary [of the property] so we lost about half the space straight away because of restrictions of code ... but it’s really pretty. It’s turned out to be a little gem.”

Archer-Wills collaborated with Redwood City-based Boicelli Cabinets, Inc. to add a custom basketball hoop, poolside bar and TV cabinet to the yard.

“It increases the dimensions of the house by seating area,” Archer-Wills said. “It actually has allowed them to utilize the area not just for swimming but also seating area, and general recreation. It’s really become an extension of the architecture, which is a great plus.”

Accommodating the rushed time frame — about half the normal time for this kind of project — required Archer-Wills to request a favor from the Woodside Fire Protection District, which opened a hydrant near the house to fill the pool in a fraction of the normal fill time, and have the Loftuses enjoying their new pool as soon as possible. Just 16 days after breaking ground, Archer-Wills presented a heated pool using a chemical-free biofiltration stream, cascading water features, a custom-built basketball hoop and a poolside bar complete with an all-weather big screen television.

“It’s almost like a little resort,” said Dede Loftus, the matron of the family. “It’s fantastic. We spend more time outside than in, that’s for sure, since we got the pool.”

The Loftus pool will be featured on the season premier episode of “Pool Master,” airing on Animal Planet at 9 p.m. this Friday, April 3.