About Bali Natural Pools

Bali Natural Pools designs and builds chlorine-free swimming pools across the island. Not pools with fewer chemicals — pools with none, cleaned by a planted regeneration zone and a bed of graded stone rather than by a dosing system.

We started because the standard pool in Bali makes very little sense here. It is filled with treated water on an island whose aquifers are under pressure, it is drained and refilled on a schedule, and the water that leaves it goes into drains and waterways that eventually reach the sea. There is a better way to build, and it happens to be more beautiful.

Meet Ilham

Ilham has spent more than eighteen years building and running operations in Indonesia.

He joined KidZania Jakarta in 2007 and worked his way up over a decade to Chief Operating Officer — the youngest COO in KidZania worldwide. He went on to run AMPED Trampoline Park as General Manager, then moved to Bali as Chief Operating Officer of The Keranjang, where he set up the theme park and retail operation from scratch, designed its operating procedures end to end, and closed five major sponsorship partnerships inside his first six months.

Since 2020 he has worked as an operations and management consultant in Bali, supporting businesses in construction, events and retail. That work is mostly about the unglamorous part: making sure things actually get finished, on schedule, to the standard that was promised. It is exactly the discipline a pool build needs.

He holds a Master of Tourism from Institut Pariwisata Trisakti and a Master of Management from Universitas Persada Indonesia YAI, and works in both Indonesian and English.

You can find him on LinkedIn.

Ilham also cares a great deal about Bali’s environment, and about the island’s water in particular. Bali’s freshwater aquifers are being drawn down faster than they refill, and tourism takes a disproportionate share of what is left. He sees natural pools as one practical, buildable answer to that — a pool that holds its water instead of discharging it, and that — wherever the site allows for it — puts rain back into the ground through recharge pits rather than sending it off the property. Building beautifully and building responsibly are not in tension here. They are the same decision.

How we work

Every pool starts with a free design consultation. We look at your site, your outlook and your budget, and we tell you honestly whether a natural pool suits the space — including when it doesn’t. A natural pool needs roughly 30–50% more area than the swimming surface alone, and on a tight site that is the deciding factor.

If it does suit, you get a design sketch or concept and a cost estimate, with no obligation attached.

1% for Bali

One percent of revenue from every pool goes to a Bali-based charity of your choosing. The island gives this business its water, its plants and its craftspeople. Giving something back is the least the arrangement deserves.

See the organisations we’d suggest — river cleanups, groundwater recharge, village waste systems and reef restoration — or nominate your own.