This was a popular postcard when I listed it for sale. I was grateful that potential buyers were interested, but mildly confused. It is not ESPECIALLY old (that it advertises cable available in each room makes it younger than I am, so it’s practically brand new). And then I spotted it.
It would be foolish to claim this is the ONLY swimming pool in the world shaped like a wooden shoe. But the shaped swimming pool is a source of fascination even for those of us whose experience is limited to rectangular public pools and circular swimming pools that had to be inflated before they were filled with water. As I understand it, most people who built swimming pools were limited to rectangles. Our ancestors used boards to build the pool or to serve as frames for the pouring of concrete and these tended to be straight and flat. (At least, no one told me about any pools shaped like boats or other things made by curving the wood.)
The earliest wild weird shape I could find was a pool shaped like the letter T, built for William Randolph Hearst for his elaborate home at San Simeon. (This was later replaced, so you can’t go look at it.) It was not until after World War II that changing the shape of the pool became easier (at least for people with deep pockets.) And even then, the new shape was simply described as “kidney-shaped.” (Which COULD lead us to the fine old joke about the man who bragged about having a “kidney-shaped pool that even has a stone in it.” But let’s ignore that.)
Apparently, we owe the explosion of shaped swimming pools to country singer Webb Pierce, who asked for a guitar-shaped swimming pool in 1952. No one explains where he got this idea, but once it hit the newspapers (and you can bet it did) the gates were open. Liberace countered with his piano-shaped pool. (Both of these were preserved and can be visited by pilgrims today.) Then Jayne Mansfield required a swimming pool shaped like a heart from her husband-to-be. Those three shapes became the most popular for people wanting something special. There is a “broken heart” swimming pool dedicated to Elvis Presley (the crack in the heart is a design on the floor of the pool), plenty of cellos and fiddles which developed from the basic guitar shape, and pianos which try hard to beat Liberace’s original (which had keys you could step out of the pool onto and a fence of piano keys around it.)
But we are not limited to these originals. There is a cat-shaped pool with little concrete islands for eyes. An airport not far from that has a pool in the shape of an airplane. There are diamonds, clubs, and spades to accompany hearts. I have seen a fish, a scallop shell, a buffalo, a yin/yang symbol, and a body part I shall not name, but if I were swimming in would be careful where I climbed out.
It was not until I saw a couple of pools shaped like the state of Texas that I realized my real mission. We cannot ALL have swimming pools shaped like musical instruments and, in any case, a flute isn’t going to impress a LOT of tourists. But in the name of civic pride, there ARE other possibilities.
“It may look like a square pool to strangers, Mister, but our pool’s shaped like the great state of Colorado.” “Yes, Ma’am, this was built so people addicted to chocolate can enjoy their exercise: we built ‘er in the shape of a Hershey bar.” “What do you mean, it doesn’t look like a Lord of the Rings swimming pool? It’s the same shape as the first edition of ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’.”
Chambers of Commerce LOVE coming up with stories, so your town could spin out one about the pirate captain who founded the town and left money for a swimming pool shaped like the plank his prisoners had to walk. Or maybe the civic swimming spot is the splashy legacy of the town’s first librarian, who invented the 3×5 card.
Let other people spend their money building a pool shaped like a Volkswagen Beetle or a Hershey’s Kiss: you can buy inflatable pools nowadays shaped like THAT stuff. But YOU can declare you were inspired by swimsuit pioneer, scandalous actress AND champion swimmer Annette Kellerman, and built a swimming pool shaped EXACTLY like a swimming pool.
Blogsy Babbles 