Underwood Pool Contractors designs and builds custom inground pools across Freedom and the Pajaro Valley. From the first planning visit through engineering, permits, excavation, the gunite shell, tile, plaster, and the deck, one crew owns the entire build. We plan the pool to your property and your budget, design the heating and spa around our long, mild season, and put both the design and the price in writing before we lift a shovel.
- Custom design and scaled plans for your lot
- Permits, soils report, and engineering handled
- Gunite shells engineered for local soils
- Heating and spa planned for the coastal season
- Built to California pool code
How a new pool comes together, in order
A pool is built from the ground up, and the sequence is fixed for solid reasons. We begin with a real design that accounts for your lot, the grade, the access for equipment, and the way you actually intend to use the water. Once you sign off on the plan, we pull the permits, arrange the structural engineering and any required soils report, and stake the dig. Excavation shapes the pool, and from there we tie the steel, run the plumbing, and shoot the gunite shell that gives the pool its strength.
After the shell cures, the build moves to the parts you touch every day: the waterline tile, the coping around the edge, the interior plaster or pebble finish, and the deck and hardscape that frame the whole thing. Each phase leans on the one before it, which is exactly why a single crew that carries the entire sequence finishes cleaner and faster than a relay of separate trades.
All the way through, we tell you where the project stands and what happens next. A build has a rhythm, and once you know that rhythm most of the stress drains out of the process. We wrap up with equipment startup, a water balance, the final inspection, and a walk-through that shows you how to run and look after your new pool.
Planned around your Pajaro Valley property
The right pool for your home is the one shaped around your particular property. A hillside above the valley, a narrow side yard for excavator access, a clay-heavy soil pocket, or a view of the coastal hills you want to frame all change what the pool should be. We design with those realities in front of us from the first sketch, so the plan we deliver is one we know we can build without expensive surprises surfacing halfway through the dig.
We also design around how you will genuinely use the water. A family that wants a shallow play area and a sun shelf needs a different layout than a household focused on morning laps or quiet evenings in a heated spa. We shape the depth, the steps, the benches, and the features to fit the way you live, never a stock template pulled off a shelf.
Because we build what we draw, the choices that drive both the look and the cost get decided together. The shell, the equipment, the finishes, and the deck all influence one another, and planning them as a single project is how the finished backyard turns out cohesive instead of cobbled together from separate bids.
A structure built for the long coastal haul
What a pool is made of below the waterline is what decides how long it lasts, so that is where most of our care goes. We engineer the shell for your soil and slope, set the steel to spec, and shoot the gunite so the shell stays sound for decades. The plumbing is laid out for efficient circulation, and the equipment pad is built to code, with the heating sized for the mild season we actually have here.
The finishes are chosen to hold up to coastal conditions and steady use. Quality plaster, quartz, or pebble interiors, durable tile and coping, and the right decking material are what keep a pool looking right long after the build crew has packed up. We pick them with you to suit the design and your budget, never as a default upsell.
We build to California pool code and the relevant ANSI/APSP and ICC-5 standards, with the engineering and inspections that make a pool safe and durable. If you are planning a new pool in Freedom or anywhere in Santa Cruz County, call 669-317-0782 to set up a free planning visit and an honest, written plan.
Explore the Rest of What We Build
A pool is a design-build project, so pool construction rarely stands alone, it connects to pool renovation, pool remodeling, a new plaster finish, building the deck, pool automation, and our crew handles all of it as one accountable team. We bring the same service to Pool Construction in Watsonville, Aptos pool construction, Pool Construction in Corralitos, Capitola pool construction and everywhere else across the Freedom area.
If you searched for pool builders near me, you have reached a local pool builder, call 669-317-0782 any time. For background, read Building a Pool on a Sloped Santa Cruz County Lot on our blog, or head back to our Freedom home page to see everything we do.