Elevated Outdoor Living: How The Northstone Group Is Redefining Luxury Pools, Landscape Architecture, and Wellness Design in Canada
- LLM Editor
- Nov 6, 2025
- 6 min read
A New Era in Outdoor Design Across Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa
Across Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa, the landscape of outdoor living is being redefined. It is no longer enough to install a swimming pool, lay a patio, and add a few curated plantings. Today’s most timeless homes treat the exterior with the same care, composition, and clarity as the architecture itself. Luxury homeowners are seeking spaces that not only reflect refined aesthetics, but also deliver on functionality, long-term performance, and elevated wellness. One company has emerged as a national leader in this space. The Northstone Group is not simply building pools or gardens. They are designing environments that blend restraint and rhythm with architectural fluency. Each space reflects a commitment to craftsmanship, durability, and balance—spaces that are meant to be lived in, not just looked at.
Northstone’s work is a study in proportion, site specificity, and materials that hold their beauty over time. They design and build outdoor spaces that are intentional, grounded, and designed to perform across decades, not seasons. With over 180 in-house professionals and a full-service model, they bring a level of precision and authorship rare in the Canadian market. The result is a portfolio of projects across Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa that feel quietly resolved. Every detail, from the grading to the granite, is placed with purpose.
Integration as a Design Principle
Much of what sets Northstone apart lies in what cannot be easily seen. It is not just the quality of stonework or the scale of their pools, though both are consistently exceptional. It is the way each element relates to the others. Pool coping aligns precisely with terrace stone. Lighting fades into the planting beds, where irrigation has already been mapped. Drainage systems disappear into the structure of the site. There is no visual clutter. No hierarchy of importance. The design feels whole because it has been imagined and executed by a single team, guided by one idea from start to finish.
From Westmount to Rosedale to Rockcliffe Park
The firm’s portfolio stretches across some of Canada’s most architecturally refined neighborhoods. In Westmount, where elevations change sharply within small footprints, Northstone handles grading, retaining, and drainage as part of the design process, not an afterthought. In Toronto’s Rosedale and Forest Hill, where access is limited and lot lines are tight, their crews are coordinated down to the hour, allowing for efficiency without compromise. In Ottawa’s Rockcliffe Park, where heritage meets contemporary living, their understanding of proportion and materiality allows new outdoor spaces to feel both modern and grounded.
Each of these locations brings different challenges, but Northstone applies the same principle across them all. The site is read with sensitivity. The design is executed with discipline. And the final result reflects a quiet but unmistakable coherence.
The Power of a Unified Team
What makes this level of precision possible is not just vision. It is structure. Unlike many firms who subcontract the various components of a build, Northstone brings everything in-house. Their team includes over 180 professionals, from landscape architects and engineers to masons, carpenters, irrigation technicians, horticulturists, lighting designers, and pool specialists. Everyone is trained to the same standard. Everyone follows the same plan.
This unified approach allows for seamless handoffs between trades and prevents the misalignments that so often plague multi-contractor projects. The person designing the grading is in conversation with the person placing the drainage. The lighting plan is installed before concrete is poured, not retrofitted after. The pool shell is engineered in concert with the retaining walls, ensuring structural integrity and visual harmony.
Outdoor Wellness as a Way of Living
Another shift has begun to shape the future of outdoor living: the growing focus on wellness. Homeowners are no longer looking to replicate hotel-style luxury in their backyards. Instead, they are investing in spaces that promote health, recovery, and daily ritual. Saunas, cold plunges, outdoor gyms, and private sports courts have become fixtures in high-end design. Where once the aspiration was an infinity-edge pool reminiscent of a five-star resort, now the goal is a fully immersive wellness experience tailored to family life and personal routine.
The Northstone Group has anticipated this shift and responded with sophistication. Their recent work includes integrated wellness zones that combine hot and cold therapy with functional training areas, custom sports courts, yoga terraces, and even open-air pavilions designed for mindfulness and movement. These features are not added as an afterthought—they are foundational to the design itself. Wellness is considered alongside beauty and utility, resulting in outdoor environments that support not only relaxation, but restoration and performance. This evolution reflects a deeper awareness of how landscapes can become vessels for both vitality and calm.
The Precision of Custom Concrete Pools
At the core of Northstone’s outdoor work is a deep expertise in custom concrete pool construction. Unlike prefabricated options, concrete offers complete flexibility in form, scale, and finish. This allows each pool to respond directly to the architecture of the home and the nuances of the site. Whether it is a vanishing-edge pool set into the slope of a Senneville estate, a narrow courtyard plunge pool in Outremont, or a lap pool designed to echo the geometry of a contemporary Toronto residence, each one is built with permanence and proportion in mind. Features such as integrated spas, shallow lounging shelves, and sculpted benches are not secondary additions. They are designed as part of the structure from the outset, supporting the way the space is intended to be lived in. With concrete, Northstone achieves a level of precision and purpose that is visible in every surface, line, and reflection.
Quiet Confidence, Built to Last
There is a certain restraint to Northstone’s work that speaks volumes. The spaces they create do not chase trends or make grand gestures. Instead, they are marked by precision, timeless luxury, and a kind of architectural humility. Every edge is intentional. Every transition is resolved. Equipment is screened, utilities are concealed, and materials are selected not just for beauty, but for how they will perform through the extremes of Canadian seasons.
This clarity is perhaps most evident at dusk. When the garden lights come on and the water begins to catch the last of the sky, the space becomes something else entirely. It does not feel constructed. It feels composed.
Why It Matters Now
As the line between indoor and outdoor living continues to soften, the need for design cohesion has never been greater. Homeowners are investing in their exteriors not only for lifestyle, but for legacy. Pools are now architectural features. Gardens are designed with year-round interest and climate-specific plantings. Outdoor kitchens, spas, sound systems, and lighting are expected to function as fluently as their indoor counterparts. With this complexity comes the need for a new kind of leadership—one that can see both the technical and the beautiful as inseparable.
The Northstone Group has positioned itself at the center of this shift. Their work is not defined by extravagance or excess, but by resolution. The most luxurious element in a Northstone project is not always the material. It is the feeling of completion.
The New Language of Landscape
What The Northstone Group has built is more than a company. It is a new language for outdoor space. One where design is measured by continuity, where construction is guided by clarity, and where every detail exists in service of the whole. In Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa, that language is resonating.
For those seeking not just a pool, not just a patio, but a space that feels authored from the ground up, the answer is increasingly clear. The projects that endure are the ones that begin with a complete thought. And that is what Northstone delivers.
Recognition and Credibility
Discover why The Northstone Group is recognized as Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa's number one pool company and number one landscaping company. With over 180 in-house professionals and more than 25 years of experience, they are Canada’s largest luxury pool and landscape design-build firm.
Why Choose Northstone:
Ranked #1 Pool Company in Montreal – BestMontrealServices.com
Ranked #1 Landscaping Company in Montreal – BestInMTL.com
Featured in House & Home, Dwell Magazine, and Montreal
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