It’s an extravagance found in the homes of the world’s supremely rich and famous jetsetters – a James Bond-style ‘vanishing’ swimming pool.
Now Sir Tony Blair is about to join that elite by putting his own £500,000 disappearing pool in his Grade I-listed country mansion.
The former Prime Minister, who declared himself a socialist during his political career, is splashing out on a floor that drops and rises at the touch of a button to reveal, or conceal, a swimming pool.
Both Sir Tony, 72, and wife Cherie, 70, are said to be keen swimmers and had a £30,000 exercise pool created in the rear garden at their sprawling home at Wotton House, near Aylesbury, in Buckinghamshire, in 2008.
Now sources have revealed to The Mail on Sunday that the Blairs have asked specialists Twinscape to install the high-tech bespoke movable floor to create a disappearing swimming pool.
It is thought to be costing some £500,000 – small change perhaps for a globe-trotting statesman said to be worth up to £60 million.
The Blairs have amassed a huge property portfolio since Sir Tony left office in 2007, including around 40 homes and flats worth about £35 million. Sir Tony spent several years working as a Middle East envoy after leaving Downing Street, but quit in 2015.
He set up the Tony Blair Institute For Global Change, which advises international clients on strategy, policy and delivery, and he is thought to make up to £200,000 a time as a keynote speaker.
But Sir Tony’s wealth is dwarfed by that of his businessman eldest son Euan, 41, said to be worth £350 million in The Sunday Times Rich List and who owns a £22 million, five-storey townhouse in West London, which also has a pool.
Twinscape, based in Ipswich, describes itself as ‘the industry-leading pioneer behind Hydrofloors’, in which a pool floor rises or falls at the touch of a button.
It says by using a control panel or touchscreen, the owner can command the floor to sink, transforming a walking area into a swimming pool within minutes.
Buckinghamshire Council, when asked whether planning permission had been sought or was required for the pool, said it could not comment on individual cases.
The most recent planning application there was ‘to install or keep installed an electric line above ground’ in the pool house, and was approved this month, according to the council website.
Features offered by Twinscape include submersible spa floors, sliding pool floors and flower beds, and disappearing fences.
The company is coy about its well-heeled customers, referring only to the exotic locations where it has created its pools, including Kiawah island in South Carolina and Portofino in Italy.
Twinscape has also installed its Hydrofloor products in private properties in London and Suffolk.
Wotton House was built in the early 1700s but wrecked in a fire a century later. Architect Sir John Soane undertook the rebuild.
The seven-bedroom former coach house once belonged to historian Sir Arthur Bryant and later to actor Sir John Gielgud until his death, aged 96, in 2000.
Now known as the South Pavilion, it was bought by the Blairs in 2008 for about £4million.
They were accused of ‘blighting’ the estate after moving in by extending the mansion and adding a glass sports pavilion and tennis court.
In 2023, they won a two-year planning row with conservation charity The Gardens Trust over plans to extend a guesthouse.
The Blairs’ current pool is believed to be a 20ft Riptide Trident PRO. It was fitted with powerful jets so users could swim against the current – while staying in the same place.
A spokesman for Sir Tony said: ‘They are modifying the indoor pool, which does not require planning permission, and changing from a manual to automatic cover.’
