Venetian Pool

Venetian Pool turns a worked-out limestone quarry into a Mediterranean lagoon. Fresh water fills a basin cut from limestone, crossed by a Venetian-style bridge and lined with mooring posts and arcaded buildings; there are caves and grottoes in the rock walls, a waterfall, and an island with palm trees. Opened in 1924, it is the only swimming pool listed on the US National Register of Historic Places.

The pool was part of George Merrick's plan for Coral Gables, the planned community he developed during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. Merrick built his city in a consistent Mediterranean Revival style and quarried the local limestone for its ornament; when the quarry was abandoned in 1921, the four-acre hole was handed to architect Phineas Paist and artist Denman Fink, who reshaped it into what was first called the Venetian Casino. Gondolas once tied up at an extra island and a high diving platform stood above the waterfall; both have long since gone. In the early years the basin was sometimes drained so that orchestras could perform in it, taking advantage of the quarry's natural acoustics – a tradition revived in 2001 for the city's 75th anniversary.

Unlike an ordinary pool, Venetian Pool is filled with fresh water drawn from artesian wells – several hundred thousand gallons a day – and depths range from about four feet to more than eight near the waterfall. For decades the pool was emptied and refilled daily; since 1998 the water has been returned to the aquifer through natural ground filtration. The 1989 restoration brought back much of the original 1920s detail, and the complex remains a rare survivor of the boom-era fantasy architecture that gave Coral Gables its character.

Getting there

The pool is in Coral Gables, a city in Miami-Dade County just south-west of downtown Miami, about 3 km from the city centre of Coral Gables. The nearest airport is Miami International Airport (MIA), about 6 km away.