The pool expert has been in the business for 31 years and opened his own studio in 2014. The designer draws every design by hand and creates pools and outdoor living areas by integrating the landscape, Block said.
“He just knows how to design a pool and how a pool will fit onto someone’s land,” said Nikki Kay, Block’s partner and director of operations.
Block started cleaning and maintaining pools in 1984, when he was in 11th grade. He cleaned pools for about eight years and then started his own business.
Block learned how to work on pumps and heaters, the control system and anything else that is involved in pool building, from water chemistry to masonry and concrete work, he said.
Block is self-taught but is an expert in his field, Kay said.
He opened his design studio with the plan to only design pools, but then he heard people say that Austin is losing its most important pool builder, he said.
“That strikes you! And there is something else: I draw these beautiful pools and someone else gets to build them?”
Block moved from Houston to Austin so that he could work with the land and use the topography to design pools.
“I was [in Houston], and it’s all flat,” Block said. “I was building these waterfalls that come out of the ground, and they have water coming out of them where it is just not natural.”
Block has built more than 700 pools and has worked with the same seven subcontractors for 12 years, he said.
He is building three to four pools a year for Enertech Builders in the Austin area, Enertech owner Kerry Martin said. Block works for developers, homebuilders and individuals.
Customer Rocky Navarro said Block designed elaborate custom swimming pools for him in the Lake Travis, Lakeway and Bee Cave areas.
“He is the best designer I have ever known,” Navarro said. “His custom-designed pools and backyards have been the most beautiful design[s] that I have ever seen. And I have been doing this for 40 years.”
Rockstar Design Studio Cedar Park
1500 Power Lane, Cedar Park
512-614-1000
www.rockstardesignstudio.net
[email protected]
Hours: Mon.-Fri. 9 a.m.-7 p.m.,
Sat. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
