The Reflecting Pool

Named after the rocky Iberian coast, it seems fitting that water plays a prominent role in Gibraltar’s steeply terraced landscape. Though no ocean, the pool has watery roots stretching back to before the Sharp family purchased and developed the property. When Gibraltar was owned by the Brinckle family, an artificial spring-fed pond stood here, where “great lazy goldfish” and frogs swam. After the Sharps acquired the estate and commissioned Marian Coffin, the area was transformed into a large, marble-bordered swimming pool.

For Coffin, the primary purpose of a pool as a garden element was to reflect the “changing, passing shadows of the day,” bringing movement into the stillness of the garden. Positioned below the Evergreen and Flagstone Terraces, Gibraltar’s pool reflects not only the changing sky and surrounding plantings, but the Mansion rising above it.

The pool remained a popular place for swimming throughout Hugh Rodney Sharp’s lifetime, but was filled with soil in the 1970s because of the expense of maintaining it. During Preservation Delaware's 1999 garden restoration, it was partially excavated and transformed into the gorgeous Reflecting Pool seen today.

Rather than a place for swimming and sunbathing, the pool has returned in some ways to its earlier ecological character. Today it is a thriving aquatic habitat for fish, frogs, dragonflies, microorganisms, and aquatic plants—a fitting echo of the Brinckle family’s spring-fed pond that once occupied this spot.