Our client loves to visit her family’s West Virginia vacation home with its active backyard that hardly resembles the manicured city lawn she leaves behind. The nearby pond draws in critters, birds, fish, and the bucolic sounds of the outdoors, but bringing this sense of nature to her tight Alexandria lot, where large equipment would have to be moved by crane, was going to be tricky.
01
Assessing the Area
The homeowner’s backyard was flat, formal, and manicured — the perfect city lawn. While it was charming in its own way, it lacked the rugged, natural beauty our client craved.
02
Yard access was the most challenging aspect of this build. The homes on this block sit close together, and moving everything over the house with a crane wasn’t an economical option. So, we got to work the old-fashioned way, doing things by hand. The drilling itself was rough enough that we needed a jackhammer, and we had to remove every bit of excess dirt through the city corridor and into a dumpster ourselves.
03
With no way to bring in large boulders, we had to construct the pond’s interior entirely by hand, stone by stone, in an impressive feat of stonemasonry. We terraced the interior to support varied plant depths and a fish habitat. When the homeowner requested the ability to walk directly into the water, we built custom entry steps into the front wall for her.
04
The homeowner already owned a set of fountains that she wanted us to work into the new design, so those went in alongside the pond’s plumbing. The final steps were the easiest: put the water in, get the fountains running, and stock the pond with fish.
The homeowner’s urban backyard was perfectly maintained but lacked the connection to nature her family’s vacation home has. Her new pond now gives her access to the sights and sounds she used to enjoy a few times a year every day of the week.
The entire interior was built and set by hand, which is a detailed task that takes a fine eye, lots of skill, and many hours to complete.
This backyard pond was terraced for varied plant depths and to support a fish habitat, a standard that we carry through every project.
The homeowner can dip her toes into the cool water anytime she wants, thanks to the intentionally designed custom steps we set into the front wall.
The homeowner’s bird fountains made for a perfect statement piece within the pond’s design.
~1,500 gallons
~4,500 gph solids handling skimmer pump and auxiliary fountain pump
Pennsylvania mountain stone, Colonial wall stone, Delaware river jack gravel
Water lily, lotus, thalia, pickerel, iris
Koi and gold fish mix
Fish caves, underwater lights, electronic algae control, a custom fountain, a stepping stone edge, intricate dry stack stonework (including stairs down into the pond), and a retaining wall behind the waterfall.
The homeowner’s yard used to be the picture of a manicured, suburban space, but now it’s a miniature ecosystem thriving in the middle of Alexandria. She can see the dragonflies fly by and hear the frogs ribbit through her windows, and she can dip her toes into the water on her lunch break. This build might have looked impossible on paper, but a ship-in-the-bottle approach made the most of the room she had.
Here are the answers to the most common questions people ask a pond contractor:
Oftentimes, yes. When we can’t get equipment in, we shift to doing things by hand. We dig, haul, and set stone ourselves through whatever access is available. It does take longer, and it’s harder, but it doesn’t have to rule out getting a pond entirely.
Yes. We can often work features like fountains or statuary into a new pond’s design rather than removing or replacing them.
No. When we can’t bring big rocks onto the site, we can compensate by hand setting larger amounts of smaller stones. This process just takes more time and skill to achieve.
While timeframes vary, it can happen faster than you’d think. On this project, dragonflies and frogs had already found the pond within a week of the water going in.
