This Guesthouse Has an Indoor Pool

With clever engineering and creative design, the natatorium in this Norwell, Massachusetts, guesthouse is as inviting as any room in the space. Wide horizontal stripes bring the walls down to scale, and fir beams give it a rustic personality while concealing HVAC ducts.

Three eight-foot-high, insulated windows provide spectators in the second-floor dining area with a view of the pool.

A mini kitchen with counter stools offers snacks and drinks alongside the fireplace seating area. A bathroom and changing space also share the air-conditioned pool enclosure.

A cupola that can be opened to release humidity is the only clue to the presence of the pool on the left side of the traditional Dutch Colonial-style home.

A deck alongside the second-floor dining area connects the guesthouse to the outdoors.

An open stairway links all three levels of the guesthouse. Its steel structure and chunky wooden treads echo structural and decorative elements in other parts of the home.

The Venegas and Company-designed kitchen features a Monogram pizza oven and a Galley workstation sink with inserts to accommodate a full menu of toppings.

Automated shades in the primary bedroom lift to reveal a view of the North River.

Taking inspiration from boutique hotels, designer Justine Sterling gave each bedroom suite its own signature color.

The teal outlines of the adjoining bedroom’s wallpaper are echoed in the bathroom tile.

In another bedroom, soft yellow hues from the Schumacher wallcovering carry over into its en suite bathroom.

In both bathrooms, Sterling says she “jazzed up” the walls by reintroducing—in a larger scale—the chevron tile pattern used downstairs.

For most New England families, gathering around the fireplace might involve books or board games played while wrapped in a comfortable throw—not relaxing in a swimsuit, wrapped in an inflatable swan. Unless, that is, there’s a 10,000-gallon swimming pool a few steps from the hearth.

An indoor saltwater pool is the centerpiece of this guesthouse designed by architect Erik Tolley for Alan and Nancy, clients who live alongside the North River in Norwell, Massachusetts. When the property adjacent to their house went up for sale, the couple saw a unique opportunity to create an all-weather destination they could share with an extended family that includes eleven grandchildren under the age of thirteen. “We said, we can make this into a real fun house,” says Alan.

For Tolley, interior designer Justine Sterling, and builder Peter Bilodeau, the real challenge was in creating an indoor recreational space that did not look—or smell—like the local YMCA.

Getting that right, says Bilodeau, required three things: a finely tuned heating, cooling, and ventilation system confined to the pool area; walls insulated with closed-cell foam to resist mold; and a cover to keep evaporation from the thirty-four-by-seventeen-foot pool from throwing the carefully calibrated environment into a tailspin.

“It’s all about controlling the atmosphere in there,” says Bilodeau. “And I call it that because that’s what it is.”

Sterling focused on atmosphere, too, but of a different kind. She tamed the institutional scale of the pool area by wrapping the walls with twelve-by-thirty-five-inch tan-and-white porcelain tiles turned vertically to create wide horizontal stripes, and used sand-colored, nonslip porcelain tile to visually soften the heated pool deck. At the pool’s waterline, she specified mosaic tiles that radiate from each corner in an ombre pattern that Nancy describes as “absolutely spectacular.”

Taking a cue from structural trusses above the pool, Sterling and Bilodeau added similar beams in the adjoining spaces and around the top of the walls, where they conceal air ducts positioned to keep clerestory windows fog-free. The overall effect is a natatorium that looks less like a gym and more like a rustic great room.

Alongside the fireplace sitting area is a bathroom and changing area as well as a bar for cocktails and kid-friendly snacks. Bathers can also sprint upstairs for a fresh slice from the pizza oven in the kitchen, then grab a seat at the dining table for an Olympic judge’s-eye view of the pool below. When the day is over, the third floor awaits with four individually styled bedroom suites. It’s like having a boutique hotel next door.

Which, as Tolley says, was part of the goal. “It was envisioned as a place to have fun with family, a getaway … in the sense where you can walk next door and get away,” he says.

Neither he nor his clients could know how critical that convenience would become just months after the project’s completion. As the Coronavirus pandemic halted travel, the guesthouse became the family’s go-to for work-from-home stress relief, snow-day swims, and socially distanced birthday parties. “It’s been nice to have a safe place to go,” says Nancy, who tries to fit in a few laps to keep active until the world reopens. She managed to do so with her niece just a few days before. “I jumped in, and it felt so good,” she says.

Architecture: Erik Tolley, ERT Architects
Interior design: Justine Sterling, Justine Sterling Design
Builder: Peter Bilodeau, Bilodeau Builders