Samuell Grand Pool

Recent discussions about the City of Dallas closing some of its oldest and most underutilized community pools and updating the city’s Aquatic Master plan, last updated in 2015, call to mind the successful redevelopment of some of the city’s oldest pools as part of this latest update. Under the 2015 Update to the Aquatic Facilities Master Plan, two of the city’s historic pools, Samuell Grand (1953) and Tietze (1946), were redeveloped into modern Family Aquatic Centers. Their historic bathhouses, which no longer satisfied current needs, were retained and rehabilitated to supplement the modern facilities.

The largest of the two, the Samuell Grand Pool, was originally designed as the best and largest of Dallas’ pools at the time. The pool is located within Samuell Park, named after Dr. W. W. Samuell, an esteemed Dallas physician who deeded properties totaling 979 acres of land to the City of Dallas upon his death in 1937 to develop them into parks. The city designed the largest and most centrally located of these properties, a 100-acre site at the corner of Samuell Boulevard and Grand Avenue in East Dallas, as a memorial park dedicated to Dr. Samuell and named Samuell Park.

The nationally acclaimed Kansas City Landscape Architecture firm Hare & Hare completed the General Plan for the development of Samuell-Grand Park in June 1946. The firm also designed numerous projects around Dallas, including the expansion of Tietze Park in 1945 that included Tietze Pool and Dealey Plaza. The plan included a swimming pool, several baseball and softball fields, a soccer field, a memorial garden, and plenty of parking, all surrounded by walkways and lush landscape. The actual development and implementation of the plan began in 1949, starting with the roads and parking areas. Planning for the swimming pool followed shortly after, as this area of the city lacked access to a large swimming pool. Designed to be the best pool in Dallas, the estimated cost for the project came in the $90,000 range, $10,000 higher than any other pool built in Dallas around the same time.

Due to the Korean War, the city had to obtain permission from the National Production Authority (NPA) for substantial construction projects, as the organization generally did not permit construction for nonmilitary purposes due to steel shortages. A recreational project was unlikely to receive the green light, and the NPA denied permission twice in 1951.

However, in 1952, it was announced that more steel would become available for recreational projects after January 1, 1953. The long-delayed project was approved for a swimming pool measuring 105 feet in length by 90 feet in width at the shallow end and 45 feet in width at the deep end. This was to be the largest and most expensive pool built by the City of Dallas for another 15 years. Funds bequeathed to the city by Dr. Samuell financed the improvements and maintenance of the parks created on the land he donated.  

Built at a time of racial integration in Dallas amid concerns that if any racial problems were to occur, a public pool might be the logical place for these tensions to manifest, so the Samuell Pool (as well as others built during that time) was built with minimal dressing facilities. This was to give the pool more of a neighborhood feel (despite its large size), thus discouraging people from outside of the immediately surrounding neighborhoods from using the pool.

The Samuell Pool opened with great anticipation and large crowds on Friday, August 22, 1953, despite being so late in the season, with a scheduled closing of the season on Labor Day, September 7. The fan-shaped pool had many desirable features for its users. The deep, narrow end featured two low diving boards and a high diving board. The concrete deck at the pool’s shallow end contained a splash pool for the youngest visitors. The spacious concrete decks around the pool provided ample room for sunbathing, as well as on the sun deck on the roof of the bathhouse, accessed by a curved staircase. Ten underwater lights lit the pool at night, in addition to the overhead lights. With its elegant diving platforms and modern amenities, the design of the Samuell Pool emulated those shown in diving scenes filmed in Southern California and Florida, promoting the Hollywood-like feel of the pool.

Architect George E. Christensen of the Dallas firm Christensen and Christensen designed the small but modern bathhouse. The firm was known most notably for such buildings as the Band Shell at Fair Park, several buildings at the Dallas Zoo, and numerous schools and residences. The bathhouse was constructed of glazed structural tile on the interior and faced with Arizona Ledge Stone, as noted on the original construction drawings (a pink sandstone with golden and plum accents) on the exterior. Redwood louvers at the perimeter walls under the deep overhangs of the deck provided ventilation into the restrooms and office. A curved staircase led to the concrete sundeck at the top of the building, where a concrete shade structure with a sloped concrete roof resting on four columns provided shelter from the sun.

As part of the 2015 Update to the Aquatic Facilities Master Plan, the Samuell Grand Pool was deemed as one of the facilities with the potential to serve the greatest number of residents and was therefore selected to be redeveloped into a Regional Family Aquatic Center as part of Phase I of the implementation of the Aquatics Master Plan. The redevelopment began in 2017 and entailed the removal of the historic pool and expansion of the pool area to accommodate a new eight-lane lap pool, a children’s pool, a lazy river, a water slide, and other site improvements, along with the addition of a new bathhouse and a new filtration building to satisfy the Regional Family Aquatic Center’s functional requirements, in conjunction with the rehabilitation and reuse of the historic bathhouse. The bathhouse had largely been spared from alterations over time and remained in good condition due to the sturdiness of its materials, making a good case for its reuse.

The reuse of the historic bathhouse guided the location and design of the new bathhouse and filtration building, such that the historic and new bathhouses frame the entrance to the facility and face the amenities, while the filtration building is located behind the historic building. The new bathhouse and filtration building are similar in size and scale to the historic bathhouse, and they borrow from the same materials and design elements, such as the Arizona Rosa Ledge Stone (a pink sandstone very similar in appearance to the historic sandstone) and the concrete slab roof, but with distinct differences that visually set apart the new from the historic, such as different stone coursing, different sizes of the overhang, and a curved wall at the new bathhouse.

The reuse of the historic bathhouse converted the original office/ticketing area into concessions, utilizing the original entry breezeway for a small dining area, and converted the existing undersized (for modern needs) restrooms to family restrooms. The restrooms retained the original redwood louver system for ventilation. On the interior walls, the structural glazed tile has been covered with porcelain tile of the same size and a similar color to the original glazed tile, after attempts to restore the appearance of the damaged glazed tile finish proved to be cost prohibitive. The roof deck was rehabilitated, including the repair and structural modification of the railing system while retaining the original pipe railing design and materials. However, it is not open for public use due to accessibility issues. The updated facility provided a new ticketing area, lifeguard area, and much larger restroom, and the new bathhouse supplied changing facilities to accommodate the needs of the Regional Family Aquatic Center.

Treanor Inc. (formerly McCoy Collaborative Preservation Architecture) served as the architect for the historic bathhouse renovation and the new buildings, as a consultant to Kimley Horn Landscape Architects, Engineers and Planners. The city reopened the facility on August 17, 2018, with a new name: The Cove at Samuell Grand. The project received a Preservation Achievement Award from Preservation Dallas in 2020.

According to attendance data from the City of Dallas Park and Recreation Department for fiscal year 2024-2025 (through the first week of August), The Cove at Samuell Grand had the highest total number of visitors for the year at 18,734, and the highest daily visitor average at 368, beating all the other City of Dallas aquatic facilities. This makes the argument that Samuell Grand is still the best pool in Dallas to keep cool on a hot summer day!