Vinnie Groppa Does Not Call Himself ‘Pool Artist to The Stars’ - I Do

Let’s just say if I was building or renovating a pool I’d call Vinnie Groppa. And for the record yes, stars do call him, but so do very regular people who still get the same star treatment! 

Humble guy that Vinnie. Great sense of humor. Really nice human and super creative pool and backyard design visionary.

I wanted to give Vinnie his own star treatment, so I invited him into the studio to tell the great entrepreneurial story of his family’s 50-year-old pool business Gunite Pools of Westchester. It’s a good one. And a story that's entering a new chapter... 'expansion'.

Vinnie Groppa grew up in the family pool business, learned about the business from a very young age, and eventually took over the company. He now proudly employs his own son to help him run the day-to-day pool operations which every year involves a ridiculously busy scenario opening hundreds and hundreds of pools for the season to be ready to roll by Memorial Day weekend.

“Gunite Pools in Westchester was started a long time ago by my father, who was a builder at the time. He and my uncle started the company. And Gunite Pools became renowned and very well-known in Westchester County in NY. I started my own little pool company, V Groppa pools, when I was like 15 years old. They were building pools but there was no service division. So at 15 I bought a car, the old Buick Skylark, I put a vacuum hose in a pole. I had this beautiful car, I could put my tools in, I had a pole hanging out the window, and I was on my way. The first year I had four customers. And then from there it just snowballed, and I got a great reputation. Eventually my dad retired, so I took on his company and now without giving that name up, I just incorporated the two together and now we have a beautiful service division.”

While the demand for pool service is high, demand for new pools has slowed a little bit since the pandemic. However, the desire for well-designed, safe, and functional pools remains very strong.

Vinnie’s passionate about great pool service but his real passion lies in designing those gorgeous pools and transforming backyards into beautiful spaces. It’s what turns him on and what he’s looking forward to doing more of!

People Fly Vinnie In To Design Pools? Yes! He’s That Good! Lol

V. Groppa Pools & Gunite Pools of Westchester have always been known for a high level of integrity and excellence. They’re now expanding into Greenwich CT Fairfield County CT, the Hamptons (where Vinnie has already designed quite a few pools) and other upscale locales where people have actually flown Vinnie in. Vinnie gets a real kick out of doing that.

 “It makes me smile because I really love that part of the business, I love being creative and seeing something through till the end and stepping back and saying hey, you know what? Look what I did. Yeah, look what I built, look what I created. You can leave something behind, and people enjoy it and to see the smiles on their faces is just invaluable to me.”

Adding a Pool These Days increases the Value of Your Home.

Realtors and Builders always reach out to Vinnie when they’re trying to increase the value of a home sale. Either by adding a pool or renovating one, making a pool safer, or adding a hot tub, a waterfall, lighting etc. So, if anybody’s out there interested in knowing more about this, Vinnie is the guy who can educate you on how to enhance the value of your home.

Let’s Talk About Pool Safety!

There's nothing like enjoying a pool and nothing worse than having something go wrong at a pool. Especially when it’s yours and it could have been prevented. One of the most effective ways to prevent accidents is to make sure the pool is securely fenced with a self-locking gate.

Vinnie says, “So the code is you have to have a self-locking gate with a lock on top so you can actually lock the gate. And if, God forbid, you forget to close the gate, it automatically closes behind you.

Another code is that every door leading to the backyard within the fenced-in area must have some type of alarm on it. So, if the mother of the house is upstairs and she's getting dressed, and the child's on the first floor and decides he/she is going to go for a walk out the back, the mother is alerted to that when the child opens the door.”

 What else does Vinnie see trending in pool safety?

 “The most effective thing right now in nine out of ten pools I'm building is that they are equipped with an automatic cover. So, it's almost like peace of mind where you close that cover. It’s like locking your door to your house. You know this is something that every parent with a small child should have but the only thing with that is your pool must be a rectangle. “

 

When Somethings Wrong with Your Pool Make It Right - Right Away.

“95-98% of our pools, we do weekly service. So my guys are my eyes and if there's anything that's wrong, they'll shoot me a picture right away and we reach out to the client and we tell them, safety's first. This is dangerous and we want to repair it, we want to take care of it. Give us the okay and we'll take care of it right away’

 

Does everybody want a rectangle pool?

“I go in a backyard and immediately I'll tell you what the backyard dictates. It's like a palette and you can see what type of backyard people have, what type of house they have. Is it modern? Is it colonial, does it warrant a free form pool? If it’s very natural in the back, I'd love to put something with a waterfall. “

 

It’s instinct after all these years with Vinnie Groppa. He just knows what would work and what would flow.

If you’ve got or want a pool, you need a Vinnie! LOL 

Gunite Pools of Westchester (and beyond now) has a stellar reputation founded on integrity, loyalty and availability.

V Groppa Pools and Gunite Pools of Westchester.

Get in touch Vinnie Groppa at VGroppa Pools or Gunite Pools of Westchester at 914-769-3513 or at gunitepoolsofwestchester.com

Meanwhile enjoy meeting the ‘pool artist to stars’ Vinnie Groppa in this podcast of our live conversation on The Debbie Nigro Show.