Pebble Pool Finishes in Timberwood Park, Texas

From Mecke Ranch to half-acre lots

Timberwood Park is a suburban community about twenty miles north of San Antonio. It is a Census-designated place, not a city. Its story goes back to 1848, when Johann Theodor Gerfers bought the first 160 acres here to raise cattle and sheep. In 1889 his family sold more than 2,000 acres to Richard A. Mecke, who renamed the land the Mecke Ranch. The Timberwood Development Company bought the northern tract in December 1976 and the southern tract in November 1979.

The development covers 2,172 acres, the seventh-largest subdivision in Bexar County in 2017. It holds 3,263 lots, most of them half an acre, and its park adds a six-hole golf course and a swimming pool to the lake. Gerfers Cemetery, with burials from 1873 to 1922, is now a state-designated Texas Historic Cemetery. Growth came quickly: 2,578 residents in 1990, 5,889 in 2000 and 13,447 in 2010, then 35,217 at the 2020 Census.

Newer homes, higher values

Most homes here are recent. Their median build year is 2008 in the Census Bureau's 2020–2024 survey, with 43.0 percent built from 2000 to 2009 and 33.3 percent from 2010 to 2019. About 85.9 percent are owner-occupied, and the median owner's home is valued at $510,600. Still, a pool can be added years after the house is built, so the surface itself is what to judge.

Pebble sits at the top of the cement finishes. The National Plasterers Council rates pebble a 12 to 18 year surface and calls it an upgraded cost option. Typical San Antonio-area prices from 2025 put a pebble finish at $7,000 to $12,000 for a standard pool with 400 to 600 square feet of surface. They are published averages, not prices of ours, and pricing your own pool costs nothing.

Hard water and a pebble surface

Timberwood Park's water history runs through the San Antonio Water System (SAWS). A list of water suppliers that SAWS posted in 2019 names the Bexar Metropolitan Water District's Timberwood Park system, at Timberline Drive and Borgfeld Road. In November 2011 the district's ratepayers voted to dissolve it into SAWS, and federal approval followed in late January 2012. Your water bill shows who supplies your home today.

For its own water, SAWS gives a typical hardness of 15 to 20 grains per gallon. Hardness means the calcium and magnesium in the water, and SAWS says it occurs naturally in Edwards and Trinity aquifer water. Its yearly water quality report leaves calcium out and points readers to state records for those results.

What scale does to the stones

Every surface that sits in pool water can collect mineral scale, cement, tile and glass included, the plastering industry says. It looks like a white or light film, and it can mute the finish color or hide it completely. Pebble still has an edge. One pebble maker says its process leaves the hardest part of the finish, the natural stone, at the water's surface. There, it resists staining, etching and wear better than plaster or quartz.

Balanced water keeps scale in check. The National Plasterers Council's ideal range for the saturation index, a measure of whether water will deposit scale or attack the surface, is 0.0 to +0.3. After the first 28 days, PebbleTec's maker suggests keeping the water to the council's standards. Brushing helps too: pool chemicals are heavier than water, and if they settle on the finish they can etch or discolor it, a finish maker warns.

San Antonio's pool-draining rule

SAWS now bills a water-waste charge instead of writing citations, and it says that makes its drought rules apply to all its customers, not only those inside San Antonio. The city's drought ordinance itself covers San Antonio and its extraterritorial jurisdiction (the zone just outside its limits) where SAWS provides service. Published sources don't say whether Timberwood Park lies in that zone.

From Stage 2 on, San Antonio's rule sends drained water only to ground that can absorb it, either directly or across a deck that empties onto that ground. And it allows a drain only to:

• bring the level down after rain;
• fix, maintain or replace a hazardous pool part;
• repair a leak.

A public pool may be refilled only after a drain for one of the last two reasons. Resurfacing isn't on the list, and nothing official says whether it counts. Ask SAWS before the pool is emptied.

Stages, and San Antonio's year-round pool rules

SAWS sets its stages by the Edwards Aquifer's level at a monitored well, as a 10-day rolling average. Stage 1 begins at 660 feet, Stage 2 at 650 feet and Stage 3 at 640 feet, and the City Manager may declare Stage 4. On October 6, 2026, the Edwards Aquifer Authority showed its J-17 well at 640.8 feet. That is the authority's reading, not a SAWS stage notice, so check the stage with SAWS when you plan the work.

Since May 1, 2013, San Antonio's code has also set year-round rules for pool construction. Automatic fill devices must shut themselves off, and every home pool needs a hose-end timer at the nearest hose bib. Pool companies must give customers written care instructions that stress alternatives to draining, unless a drain is needed for physical repair. That part of the code doesn't say whether these rules reach homes outside the city limits.