Sometimes the best innovations come from people who aren't industry insiders. Karen Larson didn't come from the pool industry. Her background was in textiles and interior design. Yet today, she is one of the leading voices behind one of the fastest-growing categories in outdoor living: plunge pools. As co-founder of Soake Pools, Karen helped pioneer America's first precast concrete plunge pool, creating a product category that has transformed how landscape architects, designers, and contractors think about pools in residential projects.
The idea began during a winter vacation in Stowe, Vermont. Karen and her husband, Brian, experienced a heated outdoor plunge pool and immediately fell in love with the experience. Back home in New Hampshire, they searched for a similar option for their own property but quickly discovered a gap in the market. Small pools were often priced similarly to full-size pools, making them difficult to justify for homeowners with limited space or budget. Rather than abandon the idea, they decided to create the product themselves.
In 2013, the couple built a prototype plunge pool in their own backyard. What started as a personal project soon became a business. Friends and neighbors were drawn to the concept, and in 2014, Soake Pools officially launched. Today, the company manufactures and ships hand-tiled precast concrete plunge pools across the United States.
What makes Karen's story particularly interesting is that she views the pool not as a swimming vessel but as a design element."A pool really defines a space," she has said. "It adds a focal point and becomes the center of that outdoor living area." That perspective resonates strongly with today's landscape professionals.
As residential lots become smaller and homeowners place greater emphasis on wellness, outdoor living, and year-round use, the traditional backyard pool isn't always the right solution. Designers are increasingly being asked to create spaces that feel luxurious, restorative, and highly functional without requiring massive footprints or six-figure construction budgets.
This is where plunge pools have found their niche. Unlike conventional pools, Soake's precast concrete pools are manufactured in a controlled environment, tiled by artisans before delivery, and installed in a matter of days rather than months. Their compact size allows them to fit into urban courtyards, narrow side yards, rooftop terraces, and smaller residential properties where a traditional pool would be impractical.
For landscape architects and designers, this opens up new opportunities. A plunge pool can become the centerpiece of a wellness garden. It can complement a sauna, outdoor shower, yoga space, or meditation area. It can create a resort-like experience in a backyard that might otherwise never accommodate a pool. Many homeowners are also using them year-round, heating them in winter and cooling them in summer to support everything from relaxation to cold-plunge recovery.
Karen has spent more than a decade educating both consumers and landscape professionals about the possibilities of small pools. Through her work with designers, builders, and installers across the country, she has helped reshape the conversation around outdoor living.
The larger lesson may be that homeowners are no longer measuring outdoor spaces by square footage alone. They're measuring them by experience. That shift toward wellness, flexibility, and intentional design is likely to continue for years to come. Landscape professionals who understand how features like plunge pools fit into that broader trend will be better positioned to create spaces that meet evolving client expectations.
For Karen Larson, what started as a search for the perfect backyard retreat has become a company helping homeowners across the country rethink what's possible in small outdoor spaces. And sometimes, that's exactly what great design does—it helps people see possibilities they didn't know existed.