Check out the new pool currently being installed at Driftwood Villa!

I stayed at Driftwood in the past and enjoyed it immensely. I chose it in large part because, with small children, it was safe in so far as there is a fence between the property and the sea, and there was no pool. The addition of a pool is an enhancement in one sense, but a detraction in another. Will there be a safety fence around it, with a secure gate? Of course the owners should do whatever seems best to them, and those with small non-swimming children will simply have to adjust their plans accordingly, I well understand.

Most pools in Treasure Beach don't have a safety gate or fence and I pretty much know every pool in the area. That's why kids have parents. To keep an eye on them.

This is a stunning addition to an already fantastic house and it's easy to sit on the veranda and watch the kids. We've had a fence-less pool at our house for 40 years and never had an incident or accident.

Looking good Carl & Wanda! I'm excited for pictures!

I know of at least one villa in TB with a fenced pool, but I'm not promoting that or any villa, or criticising Driftwood (which as I wrote I enjoyed immensely) or any other villa.

Yes of course I completely agree that it is always the responsibility of parents to safeguard their children. Without diminishing that in any way, I personally (and I don't mean to suggest that anyone who chooses differently is being irresponsible) would tend to prefer a house with no pool, or a house with a fenced pool, to a house with an unfenced pool. I think of a fence as an addition to, but never as a substitute for, parental vigilance. I'm not sure it is prudent to rely solely on one's ability to watch young children for the entire duration of a multi-day stay at a poolside villa, but I accept that others might prefer to do that. For myself (and perhaps there are other holiday-makers out there with non-swimmers in their parties) I'd be curious to know if the pool will be fenced.

To Aspirant: Two Seasons Guest House does not (yet) have a pool and children are welcome.

Christine
Proprietor, Two Seasons Guest House

The ocean is so beautiful.

Spend some time in Cape Cod(chatham) this past summer and the water is not half as beautiful.

Boy how I love Jamaica.

Pools are hardly environmentally friendly, yet the villa owners of treasure beach area seem to think that pools are now needed in order to get higher rentals and pull visitors.

What happened to the good old "sea bath"?

There is not enough water distributed in TB to provide basic services for houses, much less pools.

Unless its a salt water pool?
Now that would sit better with me.

As a longtime visitor to Treasure Beach I am finding a lot of the comments made in this string distasteful. Someone with a nice villa is announcing they are building a pool. The various people pipe in saying things like salt water is better, pools are unnecessary, pools should have secure fences around them, etc. I have never stayed at Driftwood but I know it is a lovely place because some of my friends have stayed there. What they found "missing" was a pool. The owners go to the expense of putting one in which is an expensive undertaking. If you do not wish to stay there because it has a pool then merely don't stay there. Why make all these comments.

[edited by TB.Net]

I am a villa owner. I have a pool. Even though our guests enjoy swimming in the sea, I am positive we would have many less guests if we did not have a pool. The pool has a lovely seating area around it where our guests gather. It never has an undertow.

Oh boy. Someone makes a posting about an improvement to their villa and the sky falls in. Give it a break people. You don't like pools - then stay somewhere that doesn't have one. If you like pools then stay somewhere that DOES have them. It doesn't require being passed through parliament. It doesn't even require this tiresome discussion. I'm happy for the owners of this villa. It looks gorgeous and options are the name of the game in this business.

AMEN

In both of my previous posts I accepted that owners were free to install a pool, with or without a fence, and that other visitors were free to choose villas with or without a pool, fenced or unfenced. Also that I enjoyed and am making no criticism of Driftwood. The sole purpose of my posts was to discover whether the pool will be fenced. If fenced, that suits me and my small, non-swimming child just fine. If unfenced, I'll consider that when making plans, at least until she swims a bit better. I'm not trying to harm anyone, or promote anyone else, or be malicious or destructive. Will the person who posted the information about the pool being installed please say if the pool will be fenced?

Our pool at Hikaru hasn't been fenced in its 30+/- years of existence, and we've had no unhappy incidents. I tried, when we first put it in, to set up an alarm system that would be triggered by a big splash and sound a horn up at the house, but the sea-frost defeated it in less than a year, and I gave up.
But ours is a lap pool, a uniform 4 feet deep with a slightly shallower entrance, so all but the very youngest, smallest children could walk out.

What's the beach in front of Driftwood like? It doesn't appear to be on the main fishing beach?

It's a rocky shoreline ohliz, with occasional openings providing small swimming areas (you can see the rocks between the grass and the Sea in this photo). There is a reef, not visible in the photo, between the rocks and the Sea. Not so long ago the reef was alive with corals, crabs, octopi, the occasional lobster, and an abundance of urchins. There were so many urchins hidden among the seaweed that we had to be extra careful walking along. Sadly, it's not so populated anymore.