A couple in Florida have drawn attention to their backyard which features perhaps the most unique pool in the entire Sunshine State. The pool is shaped like a revolver, highlighting their love of all things related to firearms. The couple commissioned the pool almost 40 years ago and it has been the talk of the neighborhood ever since.
“Neighbors that have bought houses around here have all come by,” said Louis Minardi, the owner of the revolver-shaped pool. “They’re all, ‘Is this guy a whack job?’” Apparently, the idea for the pool was proposed by a high school friend of Minardi’s, Albert Jones III, who was a contractor tired of building pools in the boring, traditional shapes. See an aerial video of the revolver pool below.
Initially, Minardi was hesitant about putting a massive aquatic six-shooter in his backyard, but eventually he decided the concept would represent his lifelong love of guns. Fox News reported:
Minardi was reluctant at first, but the idea resonated with him, given his lifelong relationship with guns. Now 67, Minardi said he grew up hunting with friends and remembers receiving his first firearm, a double-barrel shotgun, when he was in middle school but already mindful of gun safety. Minardi said he opened a gunsmith business with his brother after attending classes in 1976 and in the 1980s he and his wife decided they wanted a pool and called up Jones, who owned A.H. Jones Pools Inc. That’s when the decision to make the 55-foot gun shaped pool was born.
“The times were different then,”Minardi said, discussing firearm ownership. “You’re 12, and your mother drops you off a box of shells and a shotgun. But they trust it. They knew we knew what we were doing.”The gun chosen to model the pool after was a 1950s Cowboy Western-style Ruger Blackhawk, known for it’s long barrel, durability, and accuracy. “You swim your lap down the barrel,” Jones told Mindardi. “It gets deeper on that end. You can flip over from it, and then you can swim back.”
Jones was eager to build the pool, exhausted with constructing the typical ovular, kidney-shaped pools Florida is known for. Highlighting his excitement for the project, Jones even color-coordinated the perimeter of the pool with brown tiles to match the color of the Ruger’s handle and silver tiles to match the body of the firearm. The bottom of the pool includes details to show the individual components of the gun such as the trigger, chamber, and more. A hot tub was even built where the hammer is located on the gun.
Minardi claims the pool serves as a statement of everyone’s right to bear arms and responsible firearm ownership. “If you’re qualified, mentally able to have one and protect yourself, I think you ought to have one if you want one, whether you keep it at home or you carry it with you,” Minardi said. “But it’s like everything. It’s educating. It’s educating the people about the guns, how they work.”
Sadly, Jones the mind behind this one-of-a-kind pool, passed away in 2010. However, his legacy is immortalized Minardi’s pool that continues to garners fascination. John Wayne would be proud.
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