Liberty Devotion 16x40 Fiberglass Pool, Installed

This is a pool for a household that swims. Forty feet is long enough for laps, for races and for teenagers to split into teams. The curves soften it, so it looks less like a lap pool and more like a pond that happens to be warm and clean. Liberty describes the smaller Dignity as inspired by the Devotion, which tells you the look this family of shapes is going for.

It works best on larger lots: the half-acre and acre properties you find in parts of Portage, Medina and Geauga counties, where the pool can sit out in the yard with lawn on every side instead of pushed against a fence.

Liberty lists swim-up seating and multiple points of entry and exit on the Devotion. In practice, that means you are never far from a way out, and people can sit along the edge in the water while others swim past. The shallow end starts at 3 ft 6 in, which is standing depth for most kids over about eight, and the deep end reaches 6 ft 6 in. It is a non-diving pool.

Seventeen thousand gallons is a lot of water. Plan for it. Heating, chemicals and pump run time all scale with the pool, and a variable-speed pump, which comes in our package, is what keeps the electric side reasonable.

With our 4 ft deck around it, the Devotion covers about 24 by 48 ft. Put that behind a house in Hudson, which requires pools to sit behind the main mass of the house and 15 ft from side and rear lot lines, and you need a backyard of real size before you add a fence or patio. On a corner lot in Hudson, the side setback grows to 50 ft.

Access matters as much as the setback. The shell arrives in one piece on a truck, 16 ft wide, and is lifted in by crane. We check the route, the overhead wires and the ground the crane will sit on during the site visit. On wet clay in spring, that ground is part of the plan.

A freeform shell is harder to fit with a standard track cover than a rectangle, so if an automatic cover is high on your list, compare the Devotion with the Virtuous, its rectangular counterpart at the same size.

You get the Liberty shell and full installation, a Pentair variable-speed pump, a Pentair DE filter, Pentair MicroBrite color-changing LED lights, a 4 ft concrete wrap deck, a cleaning kit, starter chemicals and the electrical hook-up at the equipment, plus the 3D design and permit handling.

The yard decides the rest. On a pool this size, spoils haul-off is a real line item, because a 16 by 40 dig produces a lot of clay. We also price the barrier fence, extra decking, any dewatering and the power run to the pad once we have walked the site.

A heater is close to standard on a pool this size in Ohio, and a solar or safety cover helps hold the heat. The curves suit water features, such as a waterfall or rock feature at the shallow end. Many owners also add a spa beside the pool and a wider patio for the crowd a pool this size tends to draw.