With a new pool going in, these homeowners wanted their two pergolas to do more than decorate the backyard: real shade over the space, with a look that added some pop. A trellis alone doesn't do that — the sun comes straight through the slats at exactly the hours a pool gets used.
We retrofitted both pergolas with retractable Roman shade systems in a bold black-and-white stripe — an exclusive Sunbrella color that gives the new poolscape its pop while the shade does the real work underneath. The systems run on rope and pulley: closed through the afternoon, pulled back when the sun lets up.
One pergola sits over a fireplace, so we fabricated a custom protective screen above the canopy to catch any embers before they reach the canvas. And the whole job moved: two weeks from first design conversation to installed systems, in the middle of an active pool build. It's the best kind of retrofit — the structures were already there, and now they actually make shade.
