Pools & Spas in Woodland Hills
Pool and spa design and build for Woodland Hills lots, from flat Valley parcels to hillside yards south of Ventura Boulevard. We design the pool together with the shade, the deck and the planting around it, so the yard works through a San Fernando Valley summer.
Pools in Woodland Hills
Woodland Hills is among the hottest parts of the San Fernando Valley, and that should drive the design. A pool earns its keep in the heat, but only if there is shade to sit in beside it and a deck you can cross barefoot in August.
The ground matters as well. North of Ventura Boulevard the lots are largely flat. South of it they climb into the Santa Monica Mountains, with hillside review attached. Protected oak and California black walnut are common in the neighborhood too, and both decide where excavation can go.
Pergolas and cabanas oriented against the late-afternoon western sun, deciduous canopy where it helps, and a pool placed where the family will actually get in. We check the sun path before the shell is drawn.
Paving color and material change how hot a pool deck gets underfoot. We favor lighter tones and cooler finishes around the water and keep darker material for accents and vertical faces.
Coast live oak and California black walnut are protected in the City of Los Angeles. We map the root zone first and hold the shell, decking and trenching outside it, with new irrigation kept off the trunk.
Hillside grading review, retaining engineering and brush clearance can all apply. We identify which do during the site analysis, so the pool is drawn to clear them.
Nearby communities we serve: Calabasas, Tarzana, Encino, Agoura Hills
Start here
The style follows how you want to use the yard. Pick the backyard you are actually after and the shape, the spa and the surfaces mostly follow from it. Every project below was built here in Southern California, so the planting, the shade and the surfaces are chosen for this climate.
01 A family-friendly backyard Room to swim, and room around the water. A shallow entry, shade to sit in, and turf that stands up to being used. See complete backyards 
02 A resort-style retreat A raised spa, moving water and planting layered in close. The pool is the centerpiece and the yard is built to match it. See resort-style projects 
03 A pool and entertaining space The pool is half of it. An outdoor kitchen, covered dining and a fire feature keep people outside after the swimming stops. See entertaining spaces 
04 Remodel an existing pool New tile, coping and plaster change the pool. Rebuilding the deck, planting and lighting changes the yard. See pool remodels Pool styles
Modern, Freeform, Formal, Infinity edge, Fiberglass, Pool and spa. Pick one to see who it suits, what it asks of the property, and a project where we built it.
Best for Contemporary and mid-century houses, and anyone who wants the pool to look built rather than dropped in.
On your property Needs a level or terraced area. On a slope the cost is in the retaining that makes the level, not in the pool.
Best for Families, and lots where a rectangle fights the shape of the yard.
On your property A good answer to a Woodland Hills lot with a mature oak or walnut on it, since the outline can be drawn around the root zone.
Best for Traditional, Spanish and Colonial houses, and gardens that already work on an axis.
On your property Needs space on both sides to stay symmetrical. Tight to one boundary it stops being formal and becomes a lap pool.
Best for Properties with a view or a drop, where the far edge of the pool can be made to disappear.
On your property Possible on the hillside lots south of Ventura Boulevard where there is a drop. On the flat lots north of it there is nothing to run the water off to.
Best for Smaller yards, tighter budgets, and jobs where a shorter build matters more than a custom shape.
On your property Works on flat Woodland Hills lots with clear rear access. On hillside lots the shell usually cannot reach the hole.
Best for Anyone who wants the yard usable in January, not just August.
On your property A raised spa has to be structured with the pool, not added later. Heating is where most of the running cost goes.
One coordinated team
Everything marked here is in this one photograph, and the same company drew and built all of it. So are the cabana, outdoor kitchen and fire table just outside the frame. A pool builder gives you a pool. This is the rest of it.
How a pool gets built
The five stages below are the pool version of the same five-step design process we run on every project.
Before: the yard as we found it Somebody comes out and measures. Grade, boundaries, setbacks, trees worth keeping, and where the panel, meters, valves and drains actually sit. On a pool that survey decides where the excavation can go before anything gets drawn.
Base plan The pool, the deck around it and the planting get drawn together, same scale, same sheet. This is where the yard either works as one space or it does not.
Materials Coping, waterline tile, interior finish, decking and equipment all get picked against samples. Structural work like retaining and sections through a slope gets engineered at this stage, not discovered later.
3D rendering Permits go through our own permitting department. Then excavation, steel, plumbing, shotcrete, decking and finish, with a supervisor on site and a different trained crew for each trade.
Finished Planting, lighting and equipment start-up, then a walkthrough on how the system runs and what it needs. Plants get a monitoring period after that.
Featured project
A sloped backyard terraced into a lap-pool retreat with a raised spa, a spillway waterfall and a pergola lounge sitting out above the hillside. More pairs like this are in our before-and-after archive.
Lawn and paving up top, dirt slopes falling away toward the rear, and the driveway, fence line and utilities threaded through the middle of it. Two things ran this job from the start: the topography, and the views that opened up the moment you got out onto the slope.
We sketched by hand and put the pool, spa, outdoor kitchen and seating where the slope wanted them, working with the fall rather than cutting against it. That keeps the retaining down and the views open. The homeowners could see the layout and how they'd move through it before anyone committed to a shovel.
Before your consultation
You do not need answers to these before you call. Knowing what the questions are makes the first conversation a lot more useful.
The yard decides more of this than taste does. Setbacks, equipment access, the fall across the site and how much room you want left around the water all narrow it before style comes into it.
Concrete is formed on site in shotcrete, so the shape is yours and the build takes longer. Fiberglass comes as a molded shell in a fixed size. Quicker, but it has to physically reach the hole.
Raised, flush or spilling. Sharing equipment with the pool costs less to build and less to run than a separate hot tub, but the structure has to be drawn in from the start.
The two details you look at most and touch most. They decide whether the pool looks modern or traditional more than the outline does.
A baja shelf is somewhere to sit in a few inches of water. Benches and wide steps add usable space without adding depth.
Heating decides whether the spa gets used in January. Saltwater runs a chlorine generator instead of buying chlorine, and it can go on any of these pool types.
Lights in the water, and lights on everything around it. Running the conduit with the rest of the work is the only way to get fixtures where you want them.
Barrier and drain requirements are set by code, and Woodland Hills projects run through City of Los Angeles Building and Safety. Protected trees and hillside review can both come into the same pool permit. We pull the permits in house, and what the city asks for shapes the drawings, not the other way around.
Investment & schedule
A pool is shaped by the property it goes into: the design, the access, the engineering and how much of the yard around it is in scope. We settle those during design, so you are deciding with the site in front of you rather than a guess.
No quote written off a photograph can account for what your property is like.
Decking, drainage, utilities, planting, shade, lighting and where people actually sit all bear on where the pool goes and how it gets built. Settling them on one set of drawings is what keeps conduit out of the wrong trench and stops paving being cut to fit afterwards.
Access, engineering, permits, finishes and scope vary a lot from one property to the next, so the investment and the schedule for a pool are set once we have seen the site and the design is settled.
Tell us about the property and what you want the yard to do. We will walk through the design, site and permitting factors likely to shape it.
What homeowners say
Pacific Outdoor Living gets a 5 star review because of their outstanding customer service and job performance. We recently renovated our backyard with an in-ground pool and outdoor space. The job took no more than two and a half months to complete. Samantha the designer, worked with us to sketch exactly what we wanted and provided us with a 3D model of how our backyard would look like. It came out exactly what was sketched.
I would definitely recommend Pacific Outdoor Living. We had a great experience. They helped us through all the permitting and difficulties of having a hillside home and following LA pool requirements.
The pool, spa, and patio renovation turned out beautifully, and the custom waterslide became a favorite feature for the family. Our kids absolutely love it, and it's become the gathering spot for our entire neighborhood. The quality of the work and attention to creating a family-friendly space was exceptional.
They did exactly what they promised with amazing quality and fast timing. My project manager Khalil was a pleasure to work with, and the team demonstrated exceptional professionalism and craftsmanship.
Pacific Outdoor Living did an incredible job transforming both our front and back yards. They turned our rarely used backyard into a stunning and functional space, incorporating a new pool, pavers, and artificial turf. We met with at least four other pool builders, but POL stood out for their ability to handle every aspect of the project seamlessly, from design to construction to landscaping.
We had our backyard remodeled, which included pool installation, pergola build, and driveway paving. Our designer Julian was able to create the backyard that we envisioned and our project manager Trent made sure the whole process was smooth & efficient. They finished the project within budget and even ahead of schedule.
They did a great job with our pool deck and pool remodel. Everything was planned in detail before even beginning, and proceeded exactly as expected. Samantha was a great designer to work with, and Scott made sure all needs were met during construction. The company as a whole is just extremely professional and dependable.
Questions
Built shade beside the water, lighter decking, and a pool placed for use rather than for the photograph. Pergolas over the lounging and dining areas, deciduous trees on the west side and heating for the shoulder seasons all help. Fans and misting are useful once those decisions are right.
Often yes. The tree usually sets the layout. We map the critical root zone first, hold the shell, decking and trenching outside it, and keep new irrigation off the trunk. Work that encroaches on a protected tree requires city review, which we plan for during design.
Generally yes. Hillside grading review, retaining wall engineering and brush clearance in the higher fire hazard zones can all apply. We identify which do during the site analysis so the design accounts for them from the start.
The design stage generally runs two to five weeks depending on the size of the project and how many revisions it goes through. Construction varies with scope: small jobs can be a week, and large projects can run three to six months. Your designer and job supervisor give you a firmer timeline once the design is complete.
Yes. We have our own in-house permitting department and typically pull all permits needed for the job, so you do not have to take time off work to queue or work out the requirements yourself.
Yes. Pool remodeling is one of the services we offer, and several of the projects in our portfolio kept the existing pool shell and rebuilt it with new tile, coping and plaster along with the deck and planting around it.
Yes, and it is the reason the company is set up the way it is. We design and build the pool, hardscape, carpentry, planting and lighting with our own crews, so the same team is responsible for how those pieces meet.
Yes. Concrete pools are formed on site in shotcrete, which lets the shape be drawn to the yard. Fiberglass pools arrive as a molded shell in a fixed size and shape, which shortens the wet trades but depends on the shell being able to reach the excavation.
Yes. The design fee covers site measurements, an illustrated design, a 3-D design and revisions as needed, so you see the layout and the materials before anything is built.
Pool size and depth, how much grading or retaining the site needs, the coping, tile, interior finish and decking you choose, whether there is a spa, heating, water features or automation, and how much of the surrounding yard is included. Our minimum for projects is usually $7,500, and a custom landscape design runs from $300 to $1,850 depending on how much work is involved.
Yes. Woodland Hills is within our Greater Los Angeles service area and we work throughout the west San Fernando Valley. Use the address checker on our Woodland Hills page to confirm coverage for your exact property.
Tell us how you want the backyard to look and work. We will walk you through the right pool design, the scope and what happens next.
What happens next: we set up a visit, measure the property and talk through what you want the yard to do. Then you get a design to look at before you commit to anything.
