INTERVIEW: Jump in with designer behind Animal Planet’s ‘Insane Pools’

The pools that Lucas Congdon brings to life are something out of a tropical paradise. His Florida clients usually have robust budgets — numbering in the $200,000 range — and he matches their green with a little creative greenery. His company, Lucas Lagoons, makes backyard dreams come true, and their challenges navigating difficult deadlines and intricate stonework are the subject of the new Animal Planet reality series Insane Pools.

“It feels good to be able to share my passion and excitement with the rest of the world,” Congdon said recently during a phone interview. “I try to push people to the limit of their budget, and then I do twice as much work as what they’re really paying for just to show what I’m able to do. And so it’s great that it’s all kind of coming together now.”

Insane Pools, which airs new episodes 9 p.m. on Fridays, follows the company’s 11 full-time employees as they manage project after project, each one seemingly more breathtaking than the last. These aren’t so much pools as living art pieces, lagoons with style and panache.

For Congdon, today’s success is the result of his upbringing in an area not exactly known for its pools: Vermont. He lived with his family off 64 acres. His father was a furniture maker with a shop attached to the family home.

“I’d always be out there building stuff, making things, helping, just working outside in the garden, and just always being outside or being creative. And then when my parents got divorced when I was 10, my mom started a landscaping business, and I started helping her through high school. When I was 22, I finally moved away, but up until 22, I worked for my mom doing landscaping and rock work. I love working with stone especially, and I moved to Florida because I needed to work all year round.”

In Vermont, the landscaping and rock work usually runs for six months every year. Although he was a snowboard instructor in the winter, the profession wasn’t paying the bills. In Florida, where sunshine and warmer temps are more common, the work schedule expanded to a full year.

“So I moved to Florida, and everybody just did the same old pool,” he said. “It was all just concrete deck around a typical pool; either it was rectangular or kidney-shaped. And it was boring, and I’m thinking, man, I grew up working with stone. I have all these ideas. I think I had a vision, and we got to work on it. And it just caught on because I found my niche. There’s nobody else really doing what I do. The biggest challenge was being very young and convincing somebody to trust me and spend money with me.”

Congdon was 24 years old when he started the business with landscaping and tree work; it then expanded to ponds and pools.

“I learned everything the hard way pretty much because nobody [taught] me how to do what I wanted to do. I just had to figure it out, and now I feel confident that we’ve done so many different types of projects. I know pretty much the best way of going about most things, and it’s just great to get the recognition. And now the sky is the limit really.”

Congdon said his clients are mostly professionals, including business owners and doctors. They are willing to pay a couple hundred thousand dollars on a pool, but per square foot, the creations can still be a bargain … well, sort of a bargain.

“Here in Florida or like California, you can live outdoors almost all year round. It is a huge bonus to have thousands of square feet of outdoor living space. They spend on average around $200,000, but you’re giving them, you know, 6,000 square feet of just killer outdoor living space. Per square foot it’s still cheaper than a house.”

The resulting projects are spaces where relaxation is easy and stress melts away, at least to Congdon. “To be able to come home and lay in your hammock under a coconut palm and hear the waterfalls running, that adds huge value,” he said. “Some people spend a couple hundred thousand on a fancy car, and then it loses its value very fast. … I think it’s just a better way of spending your money, and it’s more fun.”

One of his favorite projects over the years was a pool featuring two coconut palms leaning over a grotto. There was also a spa and fire pit included. “It photographs really well because you can see all the features in one photograph,” he said. “It’s funny I feel like every time I do a new job I’m like, oh, this is my favorite one. Then we do another one, and it’s like this is my favorite one. I put everything I got into each project. Some of the ones that are my favorites are jobs that were in a smaller space that you can, from one angle, kind of get a picture of all the features, which then it photographs really well.”

Currently, Lucas Lagoons focuses on approximately 20 projects per year. There is a “huge overload” for the business with the requisite permitting and insurance, but as it stands, Congdon said he would rather focus on fewer clients with larger budgets. He does utilize subcontractors and relies on his 11 employees to bring the visions to life.

“My goal is not to build a huge machine and just crank these jobs out,” he said. “The whole point of this was to just have a very intimate company with the clients and learning about them and building something that’s uniquely to them, you know. I don’t want to lose that. I think there could be plenty of money to live comfortably made up of just doing higher and higher-end projects.”

His personal style on projects can be frustrating to the employees. He sees the pools in his mind, but the plans aren’t always written down. Because he’s not dealing with typical 2-by-4 construction, he needs to wait and see the materials before confirming everything.

“I let them know what I’m trying to go for, and it kind of evolves organically. There’s some disagreement and stuff, but if somebody feels really passionate about their idea, and they really kind of push for that, then we listen to that.”

He added: “Challenges are what drive me. … That’s what makes me get out of bed in the morning and keep doing it.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Insane Pools airs 9 p.m. Fridays on Animal Planet. Click here for more information.