Building a Lakeside Legacy at Muriel Lake

When a family approached Geller’s Design | Build | Landscape with a vision for a resort-style estate in Kenora, Ontario, they wanted more than just a backyard renovation. They wanted to build the backdrop for a lifetime of memories, including the weddings of all four of their children.

Geller’s 18-month construction tested the limits of creative design, engineering, and on-the-fly problem solving and resulted in an outdoor estate that earned an honorable mention in the Combination of Hardscape Products – Residential – More than 3,000 square feet category at the 2025 Hardscape North America awards.

A Destination Within the Estate

To achieve the client’s vision, Geller's presented three distinct design concepts in three different locations on the property. The clients chose the most ambitious option: a tiered pool and pool house complex positioned as close to the water as possible. 

"It felt like a destination within the yard," designer and project manager Caila Sveinson said. "It's a really big property, so it does feel like a separate place in their estate."

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The hardscaping on the Muriel Lake project encompasses a 4,000-plus square foot paving stone driveway, over 3,000 square feet of pool deck and walkways, and more than 2,500 square feet of wall block across three unique wall locations and elevations. 

Dimensional stone was a deliberate and practical choice throughout. By maximizing the use of large-format dimensional paving stone from Belgard, the team was able to reduce costly material waste while maintaining a clean, modern aesthetic across an enormous total area. 

In addition to the hardscaping, the project included a fully constructed timber-framed pool house, fiberglass pool with spa, indoor-outdoor kitchen, landscape lighting, extensive softscaping, and boulders carefully placed to echo the natural Canadian Shield surroundings.

All in the Details

Using all Belgard hardscape materials, the sense of arriving at a distinct destination is built into every element of the hardscape. A Roman stone pathway connects the driveway all the way to the front-covered porch of the main residence. A dramatic entryway descends through planted boulder features and step units into the tiered pool complex. Belgian cobble runs through the large-format pool deck like a natural river, dividing the space into distinct zones while maintaining visual continuity. 

The contrast of textures is one of the project's defining design elements. Smooth, large-format dimensional pavers play against the rugged, tumbled profile of the Belgian cobble and the textured face of the Silverado retaining wall block. Organic, river-pebble shapes sit beside sharp, clean edges. 

Kenora's Canadian Shield geology is defined by dark granite boulders with warm, rust-colored veining, and Sveinson used those tones as a guide for the stone palette. The result is a space that feels both refined yet rooted in its natural surroundings.

"I really love the look of the textured wall because it kind of feels like we're slicing into the earth and exposing rock,” she said. “The stones that we chose, we tried to pull from those natural tones to work with the surrounding area, to give it a really good sense of place.” 

The timber-framed pool house presented another layer of material and color coordination. 

“The hardscape continues into the pool house. It’s not separate,” Sveinson said. “We treated that indoor kitchen as if it was an outdoor one so the space is fully waterproof. Technically, it is outdoor hardscapes within the building. We used cabinetry that looked like indoor cabinetry, but it’s fully waterproof. You could drop it into the lake, fish it out, and it’d be fine.”

The kitchen backsplash stone was from Be On Stone, and the weatherproof cabinetry was Naturekast Kitchens.

For the look of the pool house, the team selected a stain from the home's interior palette rather than matching the chocolate-stained exterior beams of the main residence. The final look is familiar enough to belong, but distinct enough to feel like its own space.

“I’m proud of the material selection. I’m proud of the layout,” she said. “I’m proud of how this really just works with their existing home and some of the existing spaces they had and how it connects to their primary residence.”

Adjusting to the Landscape

The landscape beautifully influenced the colors and materials, but it also created one of the project’s biggest challenges. 

At Muriel Lake, a geotechnical survey was completed prior to construction and showed no significant bedrock concerns. Then excavation began.

The bedrock was too shallow and would have required dynamite blasting. 

"You can do all of the background work to make sure your design is going to work perfectly, but then when you actually go with the shovel in the ground, you might find something where you have to adjust on the fly,” Sveinson said. 

The bedrock also affected the pool house foundation. The entire project had to be lifted approximately three feet from its original elevation. 

A hybrid structural foundation was engineered for the pool house, with rebar drilled directly into the bedrock and formed for a concrete pour underneath. The retaining wall heights had to be recalculated, re-engineered, and re-ordered. Geo-grid placement, setbacks, and elevation plans were revised across the board. 

It's the kind of unforeseen circumstance challenge that can derail a project and damage a client relationship. At Muriel Lake, it did neither. Sveinson credits the clients' own construction background, which meant they understood the realities of working with the terrain, and Geller's range of in-house skills.  

"At Geller's, we don't just walk away and say, ‘Sorry.’ We got everyone looking at this on-site, and I had a meeting just to get it back on track so that we didn't face delays,” she said. 

The project also faced the logistical challenge of working through a Canadian winter. 

Sveinson and the team conducted the initial site survey in deep snow, using a drone to establish a grid and laser-level points across the landscape. Geller’s designers always attend initial surveys so they can absorb the site firsthand, understand the topography, especially in winter, and bring that knowledge into the design process. 

"There are a couple of things that you pick up more when you get to go there in person," Sveinson said. 

Construction at Muriel Lake stretched across 18 months. The timeline required careful staging and deliberate sequencing. 

Belgard hardscape materials were staged on-site before winter set in to avoid issues with road restrictions, which can make large material deliveries impossible for weeks at a time. Hardscape and structural work was advanced to a point where it could safely hold over the winter, then the focus shifted to carpentry and work that could be done in a heated space regardless of the temperature outside.

The Vision Realized

When the first of four weddings was held at Muriel Lake after the project was completed, Sveinson wasn’t in attendance, but she had designed every step of the journey to get there. She thought about the cobble pathways leading guests through the site, the drama of the tiered entry, the open plaza between the pool and fire pit filled with family. 

“I had my own outdoor wedding before this project so I could imagine what it would be like in this space,” she said. “…I could just envision the bride walking down there, making an entrance into those tiers or coming out of that pool house, and there's that large space between the pool and the fire pit. I was imagining the family in the pool house or watching the bride and groom get married on that tier and the pathways that you could take to get to this space and how special that would be.” 

The Muriel Lake project gave Sveinson the opportunity to be truly ambitious. 

“It's rewarding as a designer to be able to design every piece that goes into a landscape,” Sveinson said. 

And at Geller’s that means her design even includes furniture. Furniture was incorporated into the design from the beginning, staged in the 3D model so the clients could understand the full scale of the space and budget accordingly. 

“It’s really important to think about when you’re designing hardscapes. We always make a point to ask clients, ‘How many people are you entertaining? How many pool loungers do you want? If you tell me you want 20 pool loungers, I have to make sure your hardscape is going to be the right size and I have to make sure that you’re actually going to go out and buy those so you don’t end up with unusable space,” she said. 

The Muriel Lake project represents the power of thinking about outdoor spaces the way architects and interior designers think about indoor spaces. 

"Your hardscapes are your floors and your plants are your walls,” she said. “People move through these spaces just as they would through any other space inside.”