One on One With Tal Thevenot of AquaTerra Outdoors

Tal Thevenot, the founder and principal designer of AquaTerra Outdoors, is a visionary in the field of pool and backyard design. With a passion for all things outdoor and a keen eye for detail, Thevenot has built a highly successful business that creates award-winning outdoor living environments. Based in Carrollton, Texas, AquaTerra Outdoors has made its mark in the field of high-end custom backyards and continues to set the bar for many firms throughout the industry.

Recently we had the opportunity to catch up with Thevenot on the Pool Magazine podcast. He first came to our attention a few years ago after one of his incredible over-the-top projects, a Roman bath house, was highlighted on HGTV and featured in Luxury Pools.

During the course of our conversation, we discussed his process for connecting with homeowners on designing their ideal outdoor living environment. Thevenot indicated that when working with homeowners on a design for the space, the discovery process goes well beyond simply understanding the site, the scope of work, and what they want their backyard to look like.

“We always have a lot of questions for them about their lifestyle. We want to know how they want to live, relax, and play outdoors. It’s all about making that connection so we can begin to understand what they’re looking to accomplish,” said Thevenot, who indicated that the key is understanding their overall vision and using that as a foundation to create a personalized and customized outdoor living space.

Thevenot says he has observed a growing trend among clients who draw their inspiration from travel photos in order to conceptualize their dream backyard oasis. Whether it’s the magic of Disneyland or the laidback vibes of a Caribbean island, clients are eager to try and recreate the essence of places that have resonated with them. According to Thevenot, it’s about bringing that resort lifestyle into their own backyard.

“Inspiration photos are always great. We have a huge portfolio for them to look through and to give us different ideas of what they like and more importantly, what they don’t like. From there, we start the conceptual design phase and begin presenting ideas to them,” said Thevenot.

Exactly how long that process takes varies according to the customer. “With a lot of our clients surprisingly, there’s very little going back and forth. Sometimes we’re able to just dive into what their vision is. Then there are other projects where there’s a lot of back and forth going on. I’d say more times than not our final design ends up close to that preliminary concept design,” said Thevenot.

Certainly no stranger to building custom luxury pools, Thevenot says quite frequently, consumers are looking for guidance on what is hot and trending. “Right now the open concept is huge. Minimizing boundaries from interior to exterior. We are trying to merge and blend the lines between the indoors and outdoors so there isn’t any strong separation of space as far as tying structures together,” said Thevenot.

“Last year we had a project in University Park with a large water wall, big slide house, and rain curtain. That’s one actually incorporated into the foundation of the house where we had to merge the structures together with the basement and the pool,” explained Thevenot.

For Thevenot, inspiration seems to come from many sources. He states that some of his best projects are when he has the opportunity to collaborate with designers and architects that are breaking the mold and setting new style trends.

“As far as collaboration in the pool industry or even the landscape industry, it’s really just Randy Angell. He and I are very good friends and he’s an amazing designer. I love working with him. We also collaborate with a lot of architects, so quite a lot of our projects are new construction,” said Thevenot.

“We are being brought into the project early for the landscape architecture approach and designing along the side of the architects and collaborating with them and the interior designers as well,” said Thevenot.

“Once they’ve engaged a good interior design firm, I really like to get involved with them and talk about our vision and their vision. It gives us an opportunity to discuss color palettes, look at color theory throughout the home, and of course, the furnishing package inside, what’s that look like? What’s the style going to be? How do we really merge these spaces and make it feel like a continuation again, going back to minimizing those boundaries from interior to exterior,” explained Thevenot.

Thevenot’s firm has received a lot of attention as of late, racking up award after award for their inspired and meticulous approach toward designing stylish contemporary outdoor living environments. Not being one to sit there and count their laurels, Thevenot said that AquaTerra Outdoors will continue to push the envelope.

“We’ve got some amazing and exciting projects we’re working on now. So we’re just going to continue to do what we do. We want to grow each day, each year advancing as a team and individually in our craft. There are some amazing builders out there but we want to be one of the leaders within the industry that others can look up to so we can help grow the industry as a whole,” said Thevenot.

AquaTerra’s exceptional work has garnered recognition from esteemed publications such as Luxe Interiors + Design, Modern Luxury, Pool and Spa News, Hearth and Home, and prominent architecture books. Their outstanding achievements have been acknowledged with prestigious accolades, including being featured on the Luxe Gold List and receiving multiple awards such as the Luxe RED Award, Luxury Pools Pinnacle Award, APSP awards, and TNLA awards. AquaTerra’s innovative projects have also been selected for the American Institute of Architects Home Tour, showcasing their exceptional craftsmanship and design expertise.

Listen to our entire conversation with Tal Thevenot on the Pool Magazine podcast.

Photo Credits: Jimi Smith Photography