beautiful fountians – Antique Stone Pool Fountains by Ancient Surfaces.

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy, water, sun and a limestone fountain, makes it all breezy.

Posted on July 30, 2016July 30, 2016 by Ancient Surfaces

During the summer heat people tend to think about how to remodel and spice up their outdoor areas for lounging, parties and dinners outside. Spanish-Mediterranean courtyard gardens provide plenty of inspiration.

Classical Pool Fountain

These cozy enclosed patios are designed to be an extension of the home’s living space, with specific outdoor spaces to sit in, enjoy a dinner with your loved ones or guests and relax surrounded by the classic magnificent looks of tile, cooling fountains and a few choice plants.

Tiled fountain

This residence has a central courtyard with a tiled fountain. The shade provided by the four sides of the house keeps this place fresh, even during the heat wave. In this kind of court, one can well imagine having a few small tables for dinner on the stone patio.

While providing the soothing sound of water, this fountain makes a stunning focal point in this courtyard. All Together, limestone wall cladding, flower jars and the greenery of trees makes it an unforgettable place where one seeks peace of mind and soothes his spirit.

Water has become a precious element and droughts are frequent. Our water Practice has changed: back in time, pool fountains and wells were used for water supply and watering gardens and crops. Today they have become a crucial element for relaxation and decoration.

This image shows a large typical Provencal garden with a biblical stone garden path, a majestic cherry tree and a limestone pool fountain placed in the center of this private garden where children can play around and refresh all summer long. Overall, the landscape around this courtyard is a beautiful work of art.

Monastic inspired circular fountain

Even if you’re not using your fountain as a part of your pool, you can always obtain the stress relief that comes with running water. Nothing beats a cold drink in hand, laying by your pool, tuning in your favorite songs and listening to the water flowing out of your pool fountain. This lovely circular fountain was inspired by Monastic water fountains that were used by the clergy to wash their hands prior to participating in holy mass. This fountain is ideal for closed open air courtyards in Tuscan and French countryside style homes where the need to see the water dispersion from all angles is a must.

Alpine hexagonal pool fountain

This alpine hexagonal pool fountain in this photo is serving a crucial less known function besides being a lovely artistic architectural stone decorative piece. The proprietors on this Alpine Mansion have decided to install this lovely element close to their Master bedroom in order to mask the back ground noise generated from oncoming pedestrian and touristic traffic. It allowed them to gain back their privacy while helping them create a neutral white noise buffer that canceled out unwanted street level noise pollution.

Bird bath type Pool Fountain

A solitary middle dispensing Pestle topped with a bird bath type bowl vessel is probably the single most recognizable form of a pool fountain that has endured the tests of times and has survived the endless tsunami waves of design style changes cross centuries and millennia. They were catalogued in the righting of Greek Philosophers and poets, and turned timeless in the exhilarating paintings of John Singer Sargent. When in need of a timeless beauty that transcends style classifications.

Double tiered Pool Fountain

This Double tiered Pool Fountain is something of a rarity. A genuine article if there ever was one. The Harmonic ratio of the bottom and top pedestal and bowl were created using the golden ration. The bottom pool base of this fountains can not be described by mere words. A real whimsical creation awaiting a special ‘milieu’ to call home. A series of concave and convex foliated sections connect with a top beaded lining and a lower web motif heel on its base.

Four lion head masked French Provencal Pool Fountain

A majestic four lion head masked French Provencal Pool Fountain proudly sits in this 17th century French Luberon farmhouse manor or ‘Manoir’ as they are called it in French. The well defined bold and masculine features of the pool fountain based were hand carved in a Medieval style that gives onlookers the impression of ancient ramparts of fortresses.

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Antique Stone Fountains that will Beat this Summers Heat

Posted on May 19, 2016 by Ancient Surfaces

Decorative or dramatic effect of time honored European wall and pool fountains.

Most heirloom fountains that have been inherited by humanity today started originally at one point as a purely functional dispenser of water.

They were connected to springs or aqueducts and used to provide drinking bathing and washing water to the residents of early Minoan cities, towns and villages and later inside Roman private castles and villas.

All of our reclaimed stone fountains Until the late 19th century were operated by gravity.

Ancient civilizations were found to have constructed a network of connected basins in the gorges of several rivers, carved in solid rock, connected by small streams, in order to form a year long steady source of the precious liquid.

It has been said that Egyptians have invented creative water pump systems that allowed the hoisting of water up from the Nile for drinking and irrigation. Unfortunately there has been no recorded depictions of fountains in Egyptian frescoes, carvings or papyri.

The ancient Greeks were apparently the first to use aqueducts and gravity-powered fountains to distribute water. According to ancient historians, fountains existed in Athens, Corinth, and other ancient Greek cities in the 6th century BC as the terminating points of aqueducts which brought water from springs and rivers into the cities.

In the 6th century BC the Athenian rulers built the main fountain of Athens, i was called the Enneacrounos, and was situated in the main town square center of Athens. It had nine large spouts, which supplied drinking water to local residents.

Greek fountains resembled to a high degree their European counterparts and were made of stone or marble just like the ones you can still find today all over Rome. Water flowed from bronze and sculpted bronze, limestone or marble masks that generally depicted the head of a lion an aquatic animal or even a Greek idol.

Most later European fountains followed that simple Greek design having water flow by simple gravity, and by using the principle of a siphon to make water spout, as seen in pictures on Greek vases

The excavations at Pompeii, which was destroyed by Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, uncovered many fountains and basins placed at intervals along city streets, fed by siphoning water upwards from pipes laid under the street and powered by gravity.

The excavations of Pompeii also showed that the homes of wealthy Romans often had a small fountain in the atrium, or interior courtyard, with water coming from city water supply and spouting into a small bowl or basin such as this one depicted below.

Ancient Rome was a city of fountains. According to Sextus Julius Frontinus, the Roman consul who was named curator aquarum or guardian of the water of Rome in 98 AD, Rome had nine aqueducts which fed 39 monumental fountains and 591 public basins, not counting the water supplied to the Imperial household, baths and owners of private villas.

Each of the major fountains was connected to two different aqueducts, in case one was shut down for service. The Romans were able to make fountains jet water into the air, by using the pressure of water flowing from a distant and higher source of water to create hydraulic head, or force. Illustrations of fountains in gardens spouting water are found on wall paintings in Rome from the 1st century BC, and in the villas of Pompeii.

The Villa of Hadrian in Tivoli featured a large swimming basin with jets of water.
Pliny the Younger described the banquet room of a Roman villa where a fountain began to jet water when visitors sat on a marble seat.

The water flowed into a basin, where the courses of a banquet were served in floating dishes shaped like boats.
Roman engineers built aqueducts and fountains throughout the Roman Empire.

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Call us at: 212-461-0245 // 212-913-9588

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Pool fountains vs. Wellheads who comes on top?

Posted on November 25, 2015May 9, 2016 by Ancient Surfaces

A pool fountain is an architectural aesthetic piece of art which pours water into a basin or jets it into the air to supply drinking water and for a decorative or dramatic effect.

Fountains were originally used to provide drinking to the residents of cities, towns and villages. Until the late 19th century most fountains operated by gravity, and needed a source of water higher than the fountain, such as a reservoir to make the water flow or jet into the air.

By the end of the 19th century, urban fountains became purely decorative. Fountains are used today to decorate city parks and squares or home backyards; to honor individuals or events; for recreation and for entertainment.

Pros for pool fountain:

When having a very spacious backyards or garden, a large diameter pool fountain is ideal to architecturally fill in the blank space and make the place look more cozy and aesthetic for your family or guests. The sound of water cascading off of a tiered or a four spigotted fountains create a whimsical orchestra that should be music to the ears.

Even if you’re not using your fountain as an integral part of your pool, you can still glean the stress relief that comes with running water. Studies have shown that people who have fountains in their yards are more relaxed. What’s better than laying by the pool, cold drink at hand, tuning in to natures frequencies? You can even turn the flow up high enough to block out the neighborhood traffic, dog and pool parties while still enjoying a peaceful afternoon by the pool.

The height elevation of a backyard pool water fountains can easily take your audience eyes away from other backyard features that you may need to underplay or camouflage like an adjacent property wall

Pros for wellhead fountains:

Wellheads were at first nothing more than a simple hole in the ground with a limestone ring that facilitated the rope pulling of water filled buckets.

Later as the mercantile class, noblemen and royals began constructing their manors, mansions and castles around an underground water source for a self- sustainability reason, a decorative need for those well heads was born and a hole in the ground wasn’t enough any longer. In no time, wellheads became a staple to many old European fairy tales and folklore like the princess and the frog fable.

Wellheads are ideal in getting the job done where standard size pool fountains fall short or delivering that task. They are also ideal for side yard specially ones that are open to a kitchen window or adjacent to a sunroom, kid’s room or formal living rooms.

Another picturesque application for Wellheads is in the front yard entry of your home centered inside a small roundabout island where yet again a wider fountain would have been too big to fit or too obstructive to your front entryway.

Just like fountains, wellheads can also be waterproofed and equipped with a small internal pump that will allow for a water jet to softly overflow and create a soft mystical water melody fare less intense that the sound of cascading fountains.

More indoor and outdoor water fountain and wellhead models are available in more architectural styles, sizes, patinas, and stone options at Ancient Surfaces so come on by and visit our website so we can inspire you further more.

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