“We wanted a significant water feature and looked at various decorative mini pools and tanks,” says Richard Armstrong, Heavenly Spa’s proprietor.

“The purpose of the feature was to make us special and create an atmosphere of luxury as well as wellbeing.

“A small but powerful exercise pool was screaming to be included but fancy design options were disproportionately expensive.

“We met Portrait pools at the Spatex Exhibition in February last year,” Richard recalls. “We chose them over the other suppliers because of their approach.

“Their concrete spraying expert was at the show and was most impressive. The consultant was sympathetic to our project and their prices were reasonable. They listened to what we wanted and helped us create a pool we are truly pleased with.”

Portrait designed and constructed the 5 x 4.5 x 1.4 reinforced sprayed concrete pool shell. The pool shape was designed to maximise its size within the room it was to be located in, finished in NDM edging tiles from Waxman, and an Ezarri Pearlescent glass mosaic tile band, the main pool is finished in Aquastone Paradise Blue.

Portrait specified the pool plant, Tagelus 100 36″ filter, 2 HP Sta-Rite pump, 130,000 BTU S/S heat exchanger and a Triogen UV unit. The client specified the two Fastlane counter current units.

“The pool is available whenever we are open,” says Richard. “The outside is cleaned daily and the chemical levels checked every 2-4 days depending on the pool’s use. In line with our green beliefs, we use ultraviolet purification as the main method of keeping the pool hygienic with minimum levels of chlorine only.”

At a total of some 2500 square feet, Heavenly Spa has to be selective in its menu but still manages to provide a comprehensive range of treatments, both on the ‘wellbeing’ and ‘beauty’ sides of the business.

Richard again: “The size of our facility is small compared with most. We want to keep it select and have planned a maximum gym membership of only 100. It is certainly towards the ‘boutique’ end of the market. Most of our visitors say they never knew anything like this existed.

“With the counter current options on the pools we like to think we have the smallest pool in London to come up to Olympic standard training.”

Heavenly Spa Gallery