All photos courtesy Samantha French Samantha French has a knack for capturing the essence of water movement in her oil paintings. "It looks chaotic up close, but there's a rhythm to it," she says. Inspired by childhood summers spent around the lakes of her native Minnesota, French's work depicts swimmers underwater and above.

Modern swimming pool design does not always mean that a pool was built recently or has all of the most high-tech features and materials. Residential pool design dates back to California in the 1930s, when wealthy movie stars were able to afford houses with landscaping that blended the indoor/outdoor lifestyle. These early residential pools often reflected the home's architecture, complementing its design rather than competing or looking like a stand-alone feature.