Local Pool Renovations
Melbourne's Leading Pool Renovators
Tiling - Painting - Resurfacing
Melbourne's Leading Pool Renovators
Tiling - Painting - Resurfacing
We are third generation Swimming Pool Renovators. Would you like to know about the history of Local Pool Renovations? Read this article to find out about us.
This is estimated to be a 10 minute read, we invite you to learn about us & hopefully feel proud to hire us to do your swimming pool.
My grandfather, Leonardo Rodriguez, was born in Argentina in 1927.
When he was just 6 years old, he started working on a farm because his father had passed away, and he had to work with his brothers to help the family survive.
His passion was singing and theatre. He was a very talented singer and actor. Even as a child he would sing in bars to earn coins to take home to his mother.
As he grew older, he continued to sing and perform. He made connections in the entertainment business, and in his teenage years he started working in the construction industry in Argentina, where he also learned how to tile.
He arrived in Australia after the government introduced an assisted-migration policy in the early 70s that included and invited people from Argentina. He didn’t need to give it much thought — he came to Australia with his wife, Carmen, and their three children: Leo, Alejandra, and Veronica.
Leonardo Rodriguez arrived in NSW and immediately started working wherever he could find work.
He was given many jobs in the construction industry, and builders used him for whatever talents he had and whatever skills they saw potential to develop.
Leonardo was asked if he could tile a swimming pool, and he said he could. He was given a project to tile the waterline of a new swimming pool. He enjoyed the work so much that he wanted to do it again — and so he did.
He felt there was an art to tiling swimming pools unlike anything else in the construction industry.
Because of his background in the arts and entertainment, he naturally gravitated to this type of work and never looked back. He also began doing pebblecrete render coping around the tops of swimming pools.
Leonardo met another pool builder in NSW who had a swimming pool business in Melbourne. He was offered permanent work in Melbourne doing swimming pools, so he moved with his family to the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne.
My father, Eugene Galban, was born in Spain in 1955. He grew up in a small town by the sea where many of the residents worked in the fishing industry.
At just 16 years old, he became a sailor and worked on the ships that transported containers between countries. He travelled many times around the world, from Europe to Africa and South America, before finally arriving in Australia in 1974, docking at the Port of Melbourne.
Spain at the time was ruled by General Franco, the dictator of Spain, so when Eugene arrived in Melbourne he was offered work and accommodation. It was an easy decision for him to stay, knowing he could support his family overseas with the money he earned in Australia.
During a weekend in 1977, my father Eugene went out in Melbourne with friends to the Spanish Club in Johnston Street, Fitzroy.
That night he met a young woman named Alexandra. She was the daughter of the original pool tiler, Leonardo Rodriguez. After they danced and got to know each other over the course of about a year, she introduced Eugene to her parents, and they shared the news that they intended to get married.
My grandfather, Leonardo, had no problem with this, but expressed that he wanted Eugene to come and work for him so Eugene could learn how to tile swimming pools and be able to provide for Alexandra and the future security of their family.
Eugene was working full-time at a factory and would spend weekends learning how to tile swimming pools with Leonardo. In 1979, Eugene married Alexandra (my mother).
Eugene worked with Leonardo for just over four years. During this time, he also managed to work night shifts at a plastics factory.
After those four years, my father Eugene decided to go into swimming pool tiling on his own. He became a self-employed swimming pool tiler during the 1980s. He mainly did tiling work for Atlantis Pools in Melbourne, which was located on Springvale Road in Springvale.
Eugene went on to become one of the most sought-after swimming pool tilers in Melbourne. He worked for Award Pools, a highly regarded swimming pool building company, and continued expanding his knowledge, taking on private tiling work and swimming pool renovations.
Eugene completed swimming pool tiling for several celebrity clients, including Rex Hunt, Shane Warne, and Geoffrey Rush.
When I was a kid in the 80s, I remember my father coming home in his truck. It was a Toyota Dyna. I was always so excited to see my dad and the truck. I remember being taken to work with him on many Saturdays to watch him work, and I also remember going with him to the Atlantis Pools head office in Springvale.
In my teenage years, while I was at school, I worked with my father on weekends. I would always be asking questions, and he would tell me to watch how he did things so that I would learn.
I remember the first renovation I helped with. He had to build up the floor of the swimming pool because the customers didn’t want the pool to be so deep.
My father always appreciated art of all kinds, and he was always so proud of the jobs he completed. He would talk about swimming pool tiling as if it were a form of art. He would mention the mosaic tiling throughout the streets of Spain and talk about how art comes naturally to Spanish people. He would show me his work with photos he had taken and would often boast about his work when we were at jobs.
The advice my father always gave me was this: many tradies get into trouble, and many tradesmen get sued. If you don’t want to be one of them, then do every job as if it were for yourself. If you give your jobs the love and attention to detail you’d give to your own swimming pool, then your customers will always be happy.
In my 20s, I continued to work with him until eventually I was offered an opportunity to tile a swimming pool on my own. Once that job was complete, my confidence was soaring and I felt so proud. I knew I had to continue doing jobs on my own, as I was just starting a new family with my wife, Irene.
Irene was always very supportive. She encouraged me and helped me build the confidence I needed to start a business for myself.
I have always been an enthusiastic person. If I did something, I needed it to be big. No matter what I did, I wanted to be the best at it. And when I started planning the business, my first priority was to have good customer-relation skills. I didn’t want to be a rough tradie — I wanted to be a professional. I wanted to be able to communicate with customers respectfully and give them a great renovation as well as a friendly, positive experience.
When thinking about what to name the business I was starting, it didn’t make sense to give it a fancy name like Andrew Pools or Tropical Pools. I wanted to be approachable. I wanted customers to feel like I was always available. I remember once, when I needed a plumber, I was hoping to find someone local so they could help me quickly. In that moment, I realised I should name the business Local Pool Renovations as a reminder that I wanted to always be available to customers, and that they could count on me to be just around the corner whenever they needed me.
Our goal to become the best pool renovators in Melbourne is a long journey.
Even as some say we are amongst the top, we believe that the moment we decide we are “one of the best”, we risk thinking we have reached the end. That is where complacency starts. So we choose to not see it that way and act by a standard that has to be earned again and again on every single job.
Years of learning have taken Local Pool Renovations to new heights and expanded what we can do. With knowledge passed down through our family, we have spent decades learning more about swimming pools, concrete, pool tiling, and every detail that makes a renovation last. Today, we specialise in swimming pool painting, pool tiling, pebble interior resurfacing, glass bead interiors, pool coping, Quartzon removal, vinyl liner conversions to concrete, and all concrete swimming pool repairs. We are not a jack of all trades. We are specialists in each service we offer.
Altogether, this business represents 45 years of experience in the making. And we still have the hunger to learn and keep improving. Every renovation and every repair teaches us something. We have the advantage of hindsight. We can see where past builders, tilers, or renovators went wrong, and we use that knowledge to make sure we never repeat the same mistakes.
We also have a great team who genuinely care about their work and take pride in doing it properly. We run an open door policy. We trust our team to communicate with us, make decisions, and speak up. In weekly meetings we ask what they have learned, and we pass on knowledge so everyone improves. If someone needs a break, a day off, or time for holidays, that is respected, as long as we have notice and it does not impact customers.
Our team works hard. Six days a week, and sometimes Sundays when required. They are dedicated, they care, and they have earned our trust.
So if you are considering a swimming pool renovation, we would love you to consider hiring us, and becoming part of our journey.
I hope you have enjoyed understanding how we have grown in the swimming pool business.
0407 666 999
