New-Look Pools To Be Featured In 2025 Vernon Public Swimming Season

VERNON, CT — The 2025 Vernon swimming season will commence next month with two new-look facilities, recreation officials said.

"That's right, we will have two beautiful, pools for public swimming this summer," Vernon Parks and Recreation Director Marty Sitler said.

The pool season is scheduled to begin on June 23, a week after school gets out for the summer, Sitler said.

The new and improved Horowitz Pool at Henry Park will be making its debut then after a two-year process to bring it back to life.

In early April 2023, the Vernon Town Council voted to award a $1.247 million contract to Juliano's Pools to replace Horowitz Pool. A pool with a locally fashioned commercial strength liner and in-house clubhouse renovations maintains the traditional look of the venerable aquatic facility while bringing it into the 21st century, officials have said.

Horowitz Pool opened to the public in August 1953 and was in service through 2019. In the early 1990s, the town undertook a renovation project "to extend the pool's useful life." Town officials said that Parks and Recreation and Department of Public Works staff members spent "thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours" maintaining and improving the pool over the past several years, but the structure aged "beyond its useful life."

Since 2018, Mayor Daniel Champaign, council members and town staffers have examined a variety of options, including replacing Horowitz Pool. In addition to a splash pad other ideas were a year-round indoor aquatic facility and a seasonal outdoor concrete pool. The projected costs of the indoor facility and outdoor concrete pool were in the millions of dollars.

In November 2022, requests for proposals were sent out and the town conducted a series of walk-throughs of the pool site for all contractors interested in submitting bids. A plan from Juliano's, submitted in December 2022, won out and the funding was approved four months later.

The pool liner is 60 mils thick, according to pool company owner Brian Juliano. A residential pool liner is 20 mils thick and a cold water wetsuit is about 6.5 mills thick.

The projected lifespan of the 60-mil pool liner is about 15 years and rips and tears can be easily repaired through a process called thermal membrane welding, which leaves the repair as strong or stronger than the liner, Juliano said. He learned to swim at the original pool.

The project is being paid for using American Rescue Plan Act grant funds.

The Community Pool at Center 375 has been acid washed and refurbished, giving the pool and deck a newer look, Sitler said.

Both pools and the beach at Newhoca Park on Bolton Lake will all featured lifeguards on duty this summer, Sitler said.

As with past seasons, there will be no lifeguards at Valley Falls Pond, Sitler said.

The fees and schedules for the 2025 swimming season will soon be updated here.