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38 LC DBM the company, and now their wives and sons, Tammy and Joshua, and Vicky and Jonathan respectively, work with them. About 50 percent of the work is pools and their surrounding hardscapes. The company handles everything in-house except for electrical and gas. For the Catlettsburg project, a pool was involved but only minimally. The bulk of the work was building up an area 18-feet-high with retaining walls so a new covered outdoor kitchen would be level with the pool, removing and replacing the existing pool coping and decking, constructing the outdoor kitchen with a fire- place and bar, and enhancing the rest of the landscape immediately surrounding the house on this property of around 70 acres. The homeowners wanted to keep the pool but Minks Landscape ultimately up - graded it by replacing the plumbing, adding two steps, lights and a new liner. Besides the pool, a dilapidated gazebo with a hot tub greeted Samples when he first arrived. Noting the arches incorporated in the architecture of the home, his design for the renovation continued this theme in the shade structure, fireplace and two custom, stacked stone water features. For the build-up, four retaining walls in all were constructed – three tiered, six-foot-high walls running parallel to the side of the house, and one parallel to the back of the house. They were made from broken face modular block – not glamorous but since they can only be seen from down in the surrounding pasture, the owner opted for them to save on costs. Old Time Character A historical perspective resonates in this project. Samples wanted the fireplace to be built in the "Rumford" style, which was popular, for the amount of heat it gave off, from the turn of the 19th century until the introduction of the potbelly stove. The fireplace is based on the findings of Count Rumford, Benjamin Thompson, who wrote about the advantages of fireboxes with shallow, angled sides to reflect heat, and streamlined throats that allow less heated room air to escape. "I interviewed some people who built fireplaces, but they didn't really have the passion for it, and wanted to build a typical fireplace," says Samples. "So I went to the library and started studying up on it." He then built his first fireplace ever, which just happened to be a Rumford. Other nods to the past include 100-year-old bricks from an old jailhouse in London (Kentucky), which were used as a contrast to the flagstone. "You can still see a thumbprint on one side and four fingerprints on the other from being handled when they were still warm," Samples reports. Large foundation stones from a schoolhouse built by the Great Depression-era Works Projects Administration (WPA) serve as the water features' pillars. And set throughout the landscape are boulders that had been weathering in the fields of Tennessee for hundreds of years. But in a modern twist for a project with such a strong connection to times gone by, the homeowners can use an iPhone with the Intellitouch app to turn on and regulate the pool's heater, filter and lights, landscape lights, fire pits and water features, even find out what the pool's water temperature and salt content are. The past and present converge. Top, Left: The shade structure features a tongue and groove wood ceiling. Black granite was used for the bar top and countertop. The exterior wall (inset) was built of brick with 2 false windows to match the house. Top, Right: Large foundation stones from an old schoolhouse built by the Works Projects Administration (WPA), the Depression-era program that hired millions of unemployed people to construct public structures, were used as pillars for the water features. Each has a 5' sheer descent waterfall bar. The project also included four propane fire pits. Bottom, Left: The proposed site of the shade structure was in the middle of an 18' slope from the backyard to a horse pasture below. To create an area for the structure that was at grade with the backyard, three 6'-tall, tiered retaining walls (inset) were constructed. The chunks of concrete that had been removed from the old decking, patio and sidewalks were hammered into smaller pieces and used, along with clean 57 gravel, for fill behind the walls. DBM LC