Nine recent pools, and the designs clients ask for most often. Every one is drawn for the pool it goes in and cut by hand in our own studio.
Recent projects
Greek key & medallion
The Dahlia House
A Greek key runs the full perimeter in three tones, turning every corner of an eight-sided plan without breaking the pattern. At the center a laurel wreath encloses a script monogram. The field is a deep cobalt, laid so the color shifts across the floor rather than reading as one flat blue. The whole floor is mosaic — no plaster anywhere.
Venetian hippocampus
Bixenman Palladio
A Tucson residence designed after the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio and built for desert heat. Four hippocampi — sea horses in Greek myth — sit on the pool floor, with an acanthus scroll border at the waterline in blues and golds. Dark Marino glass sets off the monochrome scrollwork. Every square inch of the shell is glass: no plaster, no aggregate, nothing to replaster later.
Pool & spa
Caza de Covi
More than 250,000 individual pieces, cut for a private client in Coto de Caza. The design was drawn from an Italian hand-painted ceramic tile and rebuilt in glass across the pool and spa. Five colors carry the whole thing — a range of blues and browns held together by a neutral white, with Infinity Blue as the field.
River rock coping
Nero on the Hill
A residence above Acapulco, where the client wanted a lagoon edge that answered the canyon setting. Smooth river stones are set with hand-cut iridescent glass to make an organic transition between water and landscape. The stone selection and placement are drawn for the project rather than templated. Permanently bonded, pool-rated and compatible with saltwater systems.
Waterfront all-tile
Valdes on Naples Bay
Every surface of this pool is hand-cut vitreous glass — no plaster, no aggregate. The palette is deep navy and aqua, shifting through the day with the sky and the water it reflects. Venetian filigree carries the design, with real 24k gold smalti on the flowers and at the waterline to catch the low sun. It reads bright against the mustard stucco of the house.
Geometric lap lane
Thompson on Lake Austin
Overlapping circles composed across the pool and spa, after the Burj Al Arab in Dubai. A 50-foot lap lane is built into the pattern, so the geometry carries through the functional length instead of stopping at it. Every section was drawn and cut to hold the alignment of the repeating circles — a pattern like this shows any drift immediately.
Waterline border
Blue Sparkle at Camelback
Paradise Valley, at the foot of Camelback Mountain, matched to the interior of a 15,000 square foot house. The design was worked up as a digital and hand-colored rendering before anything was cut. Four colors only, with blue carrying the centerpiece — a restraint that lets the waterline border and the sun-shelf detail do the work.
Acanthus & scroll
Hand-Cut Blue Greco Roman Mosaic Pool
Floor, walls, steps, spa and waterline, all in hand-cut blue and gold smalti, with travertine surrounding it. An acanthus scroll wraps the entire perimeter. The design draws on Roman bath mosaic and uses opus vermiculatum — tesserae laid along the contour of each ornamental form — so the pattern reads as one piece from any angle.
Custom glass blend
Barrington Hills
Thirteen hundred square feet across floor, walls, steps and spa, on a private estate in Illinois. The glass is a blend rather than a single color: 57% Nocturne to 43% Obsidian. One color at this scale goes flat, and the mix keeps variation across the surface so it never reads as a printed sheet. A dark floor turns the water into a mirror.
Pool mosaic design ideas
These are the designs clients ask for most often. Every one is drawn for the pool it goes in — the shape, the depth, the light it gets and what surrounds it — and hand-cut in Mexican smalti glass in our own studio, led by head mosaicist Miguel Ocampo.
Waterline border
The waterline runs the perimeter at water level, usually about six inches high, and it is the first thing anyone notices. A Mediterranean wave in blues and teals, a Greek key, an acanthus scroll or a gradient blend — this is the highest-impact, most cost-effective way to put a custom mosaic in a pool.
Pool floor medallion
A single medallion set into the floor is the classic statement. Nautical compasses, sea life, geometric stars, family crests. Seen from above — a second-floor window, or a drone — a well-drawn floor medallion is the thing people photograph.
The all-tile Greco-Roman pool
Floor and walls covered entirely in mosaic: Greek key borders, acanthus scroll at the waterline, a wreath or Neptune medallion at center. The Romans tiled their baths this way for a reason — the patterns were designed for wet stone and they have held up for two thousand years. We have built this for private estates in Orange County, Arizona and Texas.
Venetian hippocampus
After the Venetian tradition: hippocampus — sea horses in Greek myth — with acanthus leaf borders in jewel-toned smalti. The Bixenman Palladio in Tucson is the example, and remains one of the most recognized projects out of the studio.
Sea life and underwater scenes
Sea turtles, manta rays, dolphins, tropical fish and coral, worked across the floor and up the walls. At full scale the effect while you are swimming is the point — the line between pool and ocean stops being obvious. It suits coastal properties where the theme is already in the landscape.
Geometric fields
Diamonds, hexagons, overlapping circles, linear borders. Clean and architectural, in two or three colors, for contemporary and transitional houses. Geometry scales in a way figurative work does not — the same pattern can run a full floor, a waterline, or a set of step markers. It also shows any drift immediately, so the drawing has to be exact.
Gradient and ombré blends
A blend that moves from deep sapphire at the floor to turquoise at the shallow end, reading as depth even where there is none. This one is about color matching across thousands of pieces rather than drawing, and it is unforgiving — a single tone out of sequence is visible.
Portrait and custom image work
The most custom of all of it — a figurative mosaic translated from a photograph, a painting, or original artwork. We have recreated classic masterpieces, family portraits and commissioned pieces for pool floors and walls. No two are alike, and nothing about it is automated.
Family crest or monogram
As personal as a pool gets. We work from an existing crest, logo or set of initials and develop a full rendering drawn for the pool environment rather than scaled off paper. Common with private estates and hospitality properties.
Step and depth-marker insets
Functional and decorative at once. Mosaic insets at the steps and depth changes do a real safety job, and they are the sensible way to introduce custom work without committing to a full interior. A good place to start if the mosaic is going in over several phases.
Sun medallion with ray border
A central sun in golds, ambers and whites, with a radiating ray border at the waterline. The gold and amber tones in smalti do something in direct sun that painted or ceramic finishes cannot — the color is in the glass, so it moves with the light rather than sitting flat.
Pool and spa as one design
A coordinated design across both, so the spa carries a complementary medallion or field that ties into the pool’s waterline and floor. The result reads as one environment rather than two water features that happen to be next to each other.
Architectural and public scale
For estates, hotels, country clubs and commercial properties, mosaic at the scale of a whole pool room or natatorium. Our work at San Diego International Airport is the reference for what that scale demands — the same drawing, cutting and sectioning discipline, applied to a private project.
Why smalti, and not tile
Every design above is cut from Mexican smalti glass. Smalti is poured thick into flat cakes and broken and cut by hand, which is what separates it from vitreous tile — our smalto line — that is cast to a uniform thickness and set whole. The irregular face is the point: it catches light from several angles at once, so the surface stays alive underwater where flat tile reads flat. The color is fired into the glass rather than applied to it, so it does not fade, chip or discolor under UV or pool chemistry.
We fabricate in our own studio and ship nationwide, paper-faced in numbered sections keyed to a setting drawing, ready for your own tile contractor. For what a project costs, see how much a custom pool mosaic costs.
Looking for something for your kitchen, bathroom or outdoor area?
We create mosaics for all spaces — kitchens, bathrooms, commercial installations, and architectural murals.
Begin your commission
Send the details of your project, or call (323) 389-5347. Studio hours are Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, and Saturday, 9am to 1pm, Pacific.