With trips to the ocean and lakes canceled because of the coronavirus and a long hot summer looming ahead, the idea of installing a backyard swimming pool couldn’t be more tempting.
That is until the pain of sticker shock sets in since the average cost of building an in-ground pool is a whopping $35,000.
Not wanting to risk ridicule about the aesthetic — or definite lack thereof — of a much cheaper plastic above-ground pool, hipsters have come up with the perfect solution: lounging around in stock tank pools, essentially a giant cattle trough filled with water.
In other words, so-called “hillbilly hot tubs” are having a renaissance.
Instagram is chock-full of supercool images of galvanized steel stock tanks — purchased from farm stores such as Tractor Supply Co. for between $300 and $600 — which creative fans of farmhouse design are customizing as pools.
They include influencers Savannah McNeill and Casey Freeman, of the Instagram page Hey Wanderer, who have an 8-foot-diameter stock tank pool in their yard in Nashville, Tennessee.
“We love it,” McNeill, 32, tells The Post of the tank, which holds 700 gallons of water. “It’s the ideal place to cool off in the heat.
“It was tight, but we’ve even gotten eight adults in there at once.”
She says while it might cost a little more than an above-ground pool, it will last longer, look better and require less maintenance.
Such is the demand for stock tank pools, that McNeill and Freeman have launched a website called StockTankPoolAuthority showing people how to assemble them and buy accessories such as filters and pumps.