Indian Summer digs into Kanakuk pool project

Most years, commercial pool construction accounts for 25 percent of Indian Summer Pool & Spa’s business, but a large project for Kanakuk Kamps in Branson has bumped the ratio to about half commercial and half residential business, Doug Fender said. The project for Kanakuk, he added, is priced at “well over $200,000 or $300,000.” Work on the pool project already is under way.

Kimmy Barger, assistant to the camp’s executive director, said that Kanakuk, 1353 Lake Shore Drive in Branson, has roughly 14,000 campers per year. She declined to share financial details about the pool or camp. The pool is part of the new area, K-Kaua`I Family Kamp, scheduled to open June 2006, offering weeklong family camping experiences with biblical instruction. Fender’s design fits the camp’s tropical theme.

“This is a very large pool that is going to offer a variety of different age groups a nice facility,” Fender said. “We have a zero entry that’s going to have some spray equipment like spray cannons. Those are going to take care of the young segment, toddler and that age group probably to about 6 to 8 years old. Then we have a medium depth area that’s going to serve as swim lanes and also for pre-teens and early teens and then there’s a large section that’s going to be 12 feet deep that’s going to serve the adult group,” he said.

‘Art form’

The Fenders began building pools and spas in 1988, and today 75 percent of their business comprises pools, 15 percent spas and 10 percent stamped concrete around those pools and spas.

“We take raw materials – cement, sand, rock – and we build what I like to think of kind of as an art form,” Fender said. “Kind of like a sculptor when he takes a block of granite or marble, and he uses that raw medium, but he has a vision with the end result in mind.”

“There’s a lot of different mediums I use as my palette,” Fender said, adding that the most popular medium used by Indian Summer is gunite. Eighty-five percent of his projects use gunite, a type of concrete with a high sand content, which is sprayed onto the surface with compressed air to create the pool wall. Gunite is used in both residential and commercial pools.

Gunite, Fender said, is more durable than other materials for pools.

“Sixty years down the road, let’s say the pool was in total disrepair, plumbing lines are all broken. If the gunite structure’s intact, you can come back in (and repair it) for about half the cost of a new pool,” he said.

As a pool designer, Fender said that using gunite allows him the freedom to create a pool that can blend more naturally into the site’s landscape compared to the stiff form of a fiberglass pool insert. The shape of the pool can be outlined with a garden hose, and then the pit can be dug. “We spray the concrete right up against the dirt as a form, then we trim that on out,” he said.

Bounty of options

Indian Summer’s projects average $120,000, Fender said. The typical customer is between 30 and 45 years old, with children still at home, and an annual income between $200,000 and $300,000.

“Once in a while we’ll build a pool for some grandparents that want to provide a place for the children to swim, but mostly it’s people that are parents,” Fender said.

There are other options for homeowners who don’t wish to spend $120,000 or more on a pool. Indian Summer also uses stainless steel, fiberglass and vinyl to craft pools.

A vinyl pool Fender said, can cost $40,000 to $80,000. Typical customers for the lower-priced pools usually have an income of $80,000 to $100,000, he said.

The variety of options that are available to pool owners has changed dramatically over the last 10 to 15 years, Fender said.

“They used to be concerned with the utilitarian feature of the pool, how well it was going to last and the economics of it. But over the past 10 years, the big trend has really gone toward aesthetics and the bells and whistles,” he said.

Automated controls, Fender said, are very popular. Features for the pool and spa can control timed functions such as cleaners, favorite settings for lights, or activation of waterfalls or music.

“You’d have a variety of different things come on with just hitting one button, like the old James Bond movies,” he said.

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