MEDITERRANEAN
Mediterranean Pool Tiles: The Ultimate Guide to Luxury Pool Design
The Ultimate Guide Design Journal 2026 ...
Read article →New York has always set the standard. In the boardrooms of Midtown and the shingle-style compounds of the Hamptons, in the walled estates of Greenwich and the Georgian manors of Scarsdale, in the waterfront houses of Sands Point and the private retreats of Sagaponack — this region's homeowners have always understood that the materials a home is made of are not a detail. They are the statement.
A pool tile is no different. The right tile at the waterline of a Southampton pool, on the fountain wall of a Greenwich estate, or on the spa surround of a Westchester manor does something that cannot be undone by any renovation that follows: it establishes the material register of the entire outdoor space. Our handcrafted Moroccan zellige pool tiles are made for exactly this moment — and for exactly this region's standard of discernment.
Why Pool Tiles
Of all the decisions made in designing and building a luxury pool, the waterline tile is the one that visitors notice first, owners live with most intimately, and renovators most often wish had been made differently. It is the material at the intersection of water and air — permanently visible, permanently in contact with pool chemistry, permanently exposed to sun and weather — and it defines the visual register of the entire aquatic environment from the day it is installed to the day the pool is demolished.
In the pools of the Hamptons, the Hudson Valley, and the North Shore of Long Island, this decision carries the additional weight of a climate that demands performance as seriously as it demands beauty. Northeastern winters are real. Freeze-thaw cycling is aggressive. A waterline tile that is not genuinely frost-proof will crack. A glaze that is not genuinely UV-stable will fade. A surface that is not genuinely resistant to pool chemistry will bleach. These are not aesthetic failures. They are material ones — and they are expensive to correct.
The following four properties define what a great pool tile must deliver, and why our Moroccan zellige delivers all four without compromise.
The visual quality of a hand-made tile cannot be replicated by any machine process. The surface variation of hand-pressed zellige — the subtle undulations, the depth of mineral glaze, the way each tile catches light from a slightly different angle — creates a waterline that has the visual character of a living surface rather than a manufactured product. This is the quality that separates a pool remembered from a pool merely seen.
Any pool tile installed in the Northeast must be rated for sustained freeze-thaw cycling. Our zellige tiles are kiln-fired to a vitrified clay body with water absorption below 3% — the technical threshold for frost-proof certification. They have been used on outdoor pools and water features in cold-climate regions for centuries. They will not crack, spall, or delaminate through New York winters.
All-natural clay body, mineral oxide glazes, wood-fired kiln production — no synthetic additives, no petroleum compounds, no VOCs, no heavy metal contamination. Made-to-order in small batches with minimal waste. A 50-year service life that makes the material's environmental cost per year of use negligible. Eco-friendly is not a marketing claim here. It is a description of the production process.
The mineral pigments in zellige glaze are fired into the clay body at over 1,000°C. They cannot fade under UV, bleach in pool chemistry, or wear from decades of water exposure. The cobalt in a zellige waterline installed today will be the same cobalt in that waterline in forty years. In a region where properties are multi-generational investments, this is not a small consideration — it is the central one.
"In the Hamptons and on the North Shore, a pool is not an amenity. It is an architectural argument. The tile at its waterline is where that argument is won or lost."
Critical for New York & New England Pool Installations
New York and its surrounding region — Connecticut, New Jersey, Long Island, the Hudson Valley — experiences genuine hard-freeze winters every year. Waterline pool tiles, outdoor fountain linings, exterior terrace tiles, and stair risers in this region are subject to repeated freeze-thaw cycling: water absorbed into a tile's clay body expands as it freezes and contracts as it thaws, and if the tile is not vitrified to a sufficiently low water absorption rate, this cycling produces micro-cracking that accumulates season after season until the tile fails.
The technical standard for frost-proof tile certification is water absorption below 3%. Our Moroccan zellige tiles are kiln-fired to water absorption consistently below this threshold, producing a clay body that is dense, vitrified, and dimensionally stable across the full range of northeastern winter conditions. This is not a marketing specification. It is a physical property of the material, verifiable by independent testing, and confirmed by centuries of use in cold-climate North African and European environments where winter temperatures are comparable to New York's.
When you choose our zellige pool tiles for a Northeast installation, you are choosing a material that has been tested by history — not just by a laboratory.
The Craft
There is a category of difference between a hand-made tile and a machine-made one that no specification sheet can fully capture. It is visible — in the subtle variations of surface, in the depth of color that comes from a glaze applied by hand rather than sprayed by a machine, in the way light moves across an installation of zellige compared to any digitally printed or roller-applied alternative. But it is also felt: in the weight of the tile, in the irregularity of its edges, in the sense that something with this much physical presence could only have been made by a person who understood what they were making.
Our tiles come from the medina of Fez, Morocco — a UNESCO World Heritage city where zellige has been produced without interruption since the 14th century. The clay is drawn from a single deposit beneath the Saïss plain outside Fez, prized for seven centuries for its density and firing behavior. It is shaped by hand, air-dried in the open courtyards of the artisan workshop, and fired in wood-burning kilns at temperatures exceeding 1,000°C. The glazes are applied by maalems — master craftsmen who train for a decade before they are trusted to work on commissioned pieces.
Each tile is individually pressed from clay by hand. The resulting surface variation — subtle undulations, micro-texture, slight irregularity of form — is what makes zellige catch and hold light in the way it does. No machine produces this. No machine has ever produced this.
Cobalt, copper, iron, manganese, tin — natural mineral oxides applied by hand from formulas used for seven centuries. Fired into the glaze body at over 1,000°C. The color is not on the tile. It is in it — permanent, unfadeable, and impossible to replicate with synthetic pigments.
Traditional wood-burning kilns in Fez produce a firing environment that industrial kilns cannot replicate — the slight variations in temperature and atmosphere across the kiln contribute to the depth and complexity of the finished glaze. Every firing is unique. Every batch of tiles is, in the most literal sense, one of a kind.
Where We Work
From the oceanfront estates of Sagaponack to the historic manors of Greenwich, from the Gold Coast of Long Island's North Shore to the wooded compounds of Westchester County — the New York region is home to the most sophisticated residential design market in the country. Our artisan Moroccan zellige pool tiles are specified by the architects, interior designers, and pool builders working at this level.
America's most expensive zip codes by median home price. Sagaponack's typical home values reach $5.7 million. Southampton's Meadow Lane records median sale prices of $17.6 million. The pool installations in these oceanfront and estate properties are among the most architecturally considered in the country — and the frost-proof, UV-stable, artisan quality of our zellige tiles is precisely what these environments demand.
Greenwich's Golden Triangle — home to senior hedge-fund principals with average household incomes above $600,000 — consistently ranks among America's wealthiest communities. The private estate pools of Greenwich and Darien operate at a design standard that rewards authentic materials over fashionable ones. Our zellige pool tiles are specified by Greenwich architects for waterline installations, fountain walls, and outdoor terrace applications that need to perform through Connecticut winters.
The Gold Coast of Long Island's North Shore — Sands Point, Old Westbury, Manhasset, Brookville — represents the most established luxury residential market on the Island, with mean household incomes above $412,000 and estate properties that have defined American residential ambition since the Gilded Age. Pool and outdoor installation projects in these communities demand materials of equivalent pedigree.
Scarsdale — consistently ranked one of America's top 12 richest neighborhoods — and neighboring Bronxville and Chappaqua represent the quintessential New York suburb at its most architecturally distinguished. Pool installations in Westchester's estate properties must be frost-proof for genuine northeastern winters, artisan-quality for owners with global design exposure, and eco-friendly for one of America's most environmentally sophisticated residential markets.
New Jersey's Bergen County — home to Saddle River, Alpine, and the estates of the Palisades — is among the wealthiest residential communities in the northeastern United States. The private pools of Saddle River's gated estates and Alpine's hillside compounds are year-round outdoor features that require frost-proof tiles with the durability and beauty to serve multi-generational properties.
The Hudson Valley's historic river estates and the private communities of Millbrook and Tuxedo Park represent a quieter, deeper strain of New York luxury — properties that have been in the same families for generations, where the design language favors permanence over trend and authentic materials over fashionable ones. Our zellige tiles are entirely at home in this vocabulary — warm, artisan, and built to endure.
Applications
Our Moroccan zellige pool tiles are specified across the full range of aquatic, exterior, and interior architectural applications in New York area luxury residences. Each surface below represents a distinct environment where the specific properties of kiln-fired zellige — frost resistance, UV stability, mineral color permanence, artisan surface depth — make it the definitive material choice.
The waterline is where the pool announces itself. Visible from every angle — from within the water, from the pool deck, from the terrace, from the guest room above — it defines the visual register of the entire outdoor space. Our frost-proof zellige produces a waterline that shimmers and shifts with the movement of the water, catching the particular quality of northeastern light — the bright sharp light of a Hamptons summer afternoon, the low golden light of a Hudson Valley autumn morning — in ways no flat, factory-pressed tile can approach. A single course of zellige at the waterline transforms the character of the pool permanently and completely.
Zellige stair risers on pool entry steps are among the most photographed and admired details in luxury pool design. The vertical face of each step becomes a canvas for geometric pattern, painted motif, or color composition — and a sequence of hand-painted zellige risers descending into a Hamptons or Greenwich pool creates a moment of artisan craft that becomes the pool's signature detail. Frost-proof for northeastern winters, certified for permanent wet-area installation, and available in any pattern or colorway your project requires.
In New York's four-season climate, the heated spa or hot tub is used year-round — through the autumn evenings of the Hudson Valley, the winter evenings of Westchester, and the off-season weekends of the Hamptons when the pool itself is closed. The thermal and chemical demands of spa environments are among the most rigorous in residential tile installation. Our kiln-fired zellige handles them with ease, providing artisan beauty in the most private and intimate spaces of the outdoor environment.
Zellige is the original fountain tile — developed specifically for permanent use in and around water in the great riad gardens and palace courts of Morocco and Andalusia. In the walled gardens and courtyard pools of Greenwich estates and Long Island manor houses, a zellige-tiled fountain wall or basin brings historical resonance, artisan beauty, and material permanence that no manufactured alternative achieves. Frost-proof for year-round outdoor installation throughout the New York region.
Frost-proof zellige floor tiles are specified for outdoor terraces, loggia floors, courtyard paving, pool deck borders, and outdoor kitchen surfaces throughout the New York region. The vitrified clay body endures the full range of northeastern weather — from humid July afternoons in Southampton to February hard freezes in Westchester — without cracking, fading, or losing the visual quality of the installation. The mineral warmth of Fez clay is as beautiful underfoot as it is at the water's edge.
Garden stairways, retaining wall faces, entry approach risers, and boundary wall details across the full outdoor architectural environment of the New York-area estate. Hand-painted zellige stair risers bring a moment of artisan craft to garden terraces and entry sequences that elevates every approach to the house — a detail that rewards close attention and holds its beauty across every season.
In the colonial and Georgian residences of Greenwich and Westchester, in the Shingle Style manors of the Hamptons, and in the historic townhouses of Manhattan's Upper East Side and Tribeca, the fireplace surround is the most architecturally significant wall surface in the room. Zellige brings an artisan depth, a mineral richness, and a historical resonance to this surface that no factory tile achieves — making it the material of choice for the most considered interior renovation projects in the New York region.
A zellige-tiled master bathroom shower is one of the most impactful material decisions available in a New York-area luxury renovation. The irregular surface of hand-pressed zellige catches the light in a wet room as compellingly as it does at a pool waterline — creating a shower environment of genuine artisan depth. Fully waterproof, non-porous when grouted, and rated for permanent wet-area wall installation. Available in any colorway in our full palette, from crisp cobalt and white to the warm terracotta tones that complement the natural materials of Hudson Valley and Westchester homes.
The kitchen backsplash is the most viewed surface in the most-used room in the house — and in the renovated kitchens of Hamptons summer homes, Westchester estate houses, and Manhattan townhouses, it is increasingly the material detail that defines the entire room's character. A hand-painted zellige backsplash resists grease, heat, and moisture while providing a visual complexity and mineral richness that stone, glass, and mass-ceramic alternatives cannot match. The room that has a zellige backsplash is the room everyone remembers.
Sustainability
The luxury homeowners and architects of the New York metropolitan region are among the most environmentally informed buyers in the world. The Hamptons, the Hudson Valley, and Westchester County all have strong traditions of environmental stewardship and conservation — and the buyers commissioning significant residential projects in these communities bring a sophisticated sustainability lens to every material specification. Our Moroccan zellige tiles meet that lens honestly, without greenwashing, and with the full transparency of a production process that has been openly practiced in the same way for seven hundred years.
Single-source natural terracotta clay with no synthetic additives, no petroleum binders, no polymer coatings. Completely natural before firing, completely inert and stable afterward, and fully recyclable at end of a very long service life.
Every color produced from natural mineral oxides — cobalt, copper, iron, manganese, tin. No synthetic dyes, no heavy metal contamination at harmful levels, no volatile organic compounds. The color is embedded in the glaze body, permanent and non-leaching.
Kilns fueled with pruned olive and cedar wood — a carbon footprint fraction of the industrial gas-fired tunnel kilns used in mass ceramic production. The traditional craft process is, in this case, the cleanest available.
A properly installed zellige pool tile or fireplace surround will outlast virtually every alternative material. When measured over its service life, the environmental cost per year of use is negligible. Durability is the most honest sustainability argument any material can make — and zellige makes it compellingly.
For LEED-certified residential projects, Passive House programs, or clients with formal environmental documentation requirements, we provide complete material data sheets, production provenance records, and environmental product declarations upon request.
Bespoke Service
No two pools in Southampton are designed to the same proportions. No two kitchens in Greenwich share a stone selection. No two fireplace surrounds in Westchester call for the same color of blue. This is why we offer full custom fabrication on every order — producing tiles that are designed specifically for your project, in the precise color, pattern, size, and format that your architect or designer specifies.
Our standard palette covers the full classical Moroccan range — cobalt blue, turquoise, forest green, terracotta, ivory, charcoal, ochre, and manganese black. For New York-area projects, we develop custom glaze formulas matched to specific Pantone references, Farrow & Ball or Benjamin Moore paint selections, stone or marble samples, or interior fabric palettes. Your waterline can be any color your project requires.
Our maalems in Fez execute any historic Islamic geometric pattern at any scale — from classic eight-pointed stars and Andalusian vine borders to complex field compositions — as well as entirely original designs developed in collaboration with your design team. Pattern specifications apply equally to pool waterlines, shower walls, fireplace surrounds, and kitchen backsplashes.
Standard waterline formats: 4×4", 6×6", 4×8", 3×6" brick. Custom dimensions produced for non-standard waterline heights, curved pool profiles, vanishing-edge transitions, fireplace surround dimensions, shower niche inserts, and all bespoke installation conditions across pool, interior, and exterior applications.
Listello borders, rope moldings, corner returns, coping tiles, step nosings, fireplace hearth pieces, shower niche shelves, and all transition tiles — produced to coordinate with your field tile for fully resolved, architecturally coherent installations across every surface in your project.
Physical samples provided for design presentations, client approvals, and contractor mock-ups before any production commitment. For significant estate and renovation projects, we produce a full installation panel — allowing you to see your custom tile on your actual surface, in your actual light, before a single tile is permanently installed.
Minimum order: 50 sq ft · Lead time: 8 weeks standard · 10 weeks custom colorways or patterns
Technical
| Material | Handcrafted terracotta zellige clay, natural mineral glaze |
| Finish | Hand-pressed, hand-glazed, wood-kiln fired |
| Standard Sizes | 4×4", 6×6", 4×8", 3×6" — custom available |
| Thickness | 3/8" |
| Backing | Rigid resin backing for pool installation |
| Water Absorption | < 3% — pool-rated & frost-proof |
| Frost Resistance | Yes — fully rated for northeastern US freeze-thaw cycling |
| UV Resistance | Yes — mineral pigments, permanent color, no fading |
| Chemical Resistance | Chlorinated and saltwater pool rated · Heat and grease resistant for kitchen use |
| Pool Applications | Waterline · Step risers · Spa & hot tub surrounds · Fountain linings · Exterior pool walls |
| Interior Applications | Fireplace surround · Shower walls · Kitchen backsplash · Entry & floor tiles · Feature walls |
| Exterior Applications | Terrace floors · Outdoor stair risers · Garden walls · Entry approaches · Pool deck borders |
| Minimum Order | 50 sq ft |
| Lead Time | 8 weeks standard / 10 weeks custom |
| Origin | Handcrafted in Fez, Morocco |
| Price | Available upon request — contact us for project pricing |
Trade Program
We work directly and confidentially with the design and construction community throughout New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and the broader northeastern United States — from the pool builders and landscape architects of the Hamptons to the interior designers working on estate renovations in Greenwich, Westchester, and the Hudson Valley.
Begin Your Project
Our studio team works individually with each client — from the first conversation about color, pattern, and installation context through sample review, custom production, and final delivery. We welcome inquiries from architects, interior designers, landscape architects, pool builders, kitchen designers, and estate owners throughout New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and the broader northeastern United States.
From the oceanfront pools of Sagaponack and Southampton to the walled garden fountains of Greenwich and the historic manor terraces of Westchester and the Hudson Valley — the finest properties in the New York region are defined by the quality of every decision made in their creation. Our Moroccan zellige pool tiles bring to those decisions the one material quality that no factory tile has ever provided: the permanent, unmistakable mark of seven centuries of unbroken artisan mastery.
Request a Sample or QuoteMediterranean Pool Tiles · Handcrafted in Fez, Morocco · Delivered to the Hamptons, Greenwich, Westchester, Long Island & the New York Region
A quieter, cleaner call to action for designers, architects, builders, and homeowners sourcing handcrafted pool tile for custom projects.
New York has always set the standard. In the boardrooms of Midtown and the shingle-style compounds of the Hamptons, in the walled estates of Greenwich and the Georgian manors of Scarsdale, in the waterfront houses of Sands Point and the private retreats of Sagaponack — this region's homeowners have always understood that the materials a home is made of are not a detail. They are the statement.
A pool tile is no different. The right tile at the waterline of a Southampton pool, on the fountain wall of a Greenwich estate, or on the spa surround of a Westchester manor does something that cannot be undone by any renovation that follows: it establishes the material register of the entire outdoor space. Our handcrafted Moroccan zellige pool tiles are made for exactly this moment — and for exactly this region's standard of discernment.
Why Pool Tiles
Of all the decisions made in designing and building a luxury pool, the waterline tile is the one that visitors notice first, owners live with most intimately, and renovators most often wish had been made differently. It is the material at the intersection of water and air — permanently visible, permanently in contact with pool chemistry, permanently exposed to sun and weather — and it defines the visual register of the entire aquatic environment from the day it is installed to the day the pool is demolished.
In the pools of the Hamptons, the Hudson Valley, and the North Shore of Long Island, this decision carries the additional weight of a climate that demands performance as seriously as it demands beauty. Northeastern winters are real. Freeze-thaw cycling is aggressive. A waterline tile that is not genuinely frost-proof will crack. A glaze that is not genuinely UV-stable will fade. A surface that is not genuinely resistant to pool chemistry will bleach. These are not aesthetic failures. They are material ones — and they are expensive to correct.
The following four properties define what a great pool tile must deliver, and why our Moroccan zellige delivers all four without compromise.
The visual quality of a hand-made tile cannot be replicated by any machine process. The surface variation of hand-pressed zellige — the subtle undulations, the depth of mineral glaze, the way each tile catches light from a slightly different angle — creates a waterline that has the visual character of a living surface rather than a manufactured product. This is the quality that separates a pool remembered from a pool merely seen.
Any pool tile installed in the Northeast must be rated for sustained freeze-thaw cycling. Our zellige tiles are kiln-fired to a vitrified clay body with water absorption below 3% — the technical threshold for frost-proof certification. They have been used on outdoor pools and water features in cold-climate regions for centuries. They will not crack, spall, or delaminate through New York winters.
All-natural clay body, mineral oxide glazes, wood-fired kiln production — no synthetic additives, no petroleum compounds, no VOCs, no heavy metal contamination. Made-to-order in small batches with minimal waste. A 50-year service life that makes the material's environmental cost per year of use negligible. Eco-friendly is not a marketing claim here. It is a description of the production process.
The mineral pigments in zellige glaze are fired into the clay body at over 1,000°C. They cannot fade under UV, bleach in pool chemistry, or wear from decades of water exposure. The cobalt in a zellige waterline installed today will be the same cobalt in that waterline in forty years. In a region where properties are multi-generational investments, this is not a small consideration — it is the central one.
"In the Hamptons and on the North Shore, a pool is not an amenity. It is an architectural argument. The tile at its waterline is where that argument is won or lost."
Critical for New York & New England Pool Installations
New York and its surrounding region — Connecticut, New Jersey, Long Island, the Hudson Valley — experiences genuine hard-freeze winters every year. Waterline pool tiles, outdoor fountain linings, exterior terrace tiles, and stair risers in this region are subject to repeated freeze-thaw cycling: water absorbed into a tile's clay body expands as it freezes and contracts as it thaws, and if the tile is not vitrified to a sufficiently low water absorption rate, this cycling produces micro-cracking that accumulates season after season until the tile fails.
The technical standard for frost-proof tile certification is water absorption below 3%. Our Moroccan zellige tiles are kiln-fired to water absorption consistently below this threshold, producing a clay body that is dense, vitrified, and dimensionally stable across the full range of northeastern winter conditions. This is not a marketing specification. It is a physical property of the material, verifiable by independent testing, and confirmed by centuries of use in cold-climate North African and European environments where winter temperatures are comparable to New York's.
When you choose our zellige pool tiles for a Northeast installation, you are choosing a material that has been tested by history — not just by a laboratory.
The Craft
There is a category of difference between a hand-made tile and a machine-made one that no specification sheet can fully capture. It is visible — in the subtle variations of surface, in the depth of color that comes from a glaze applied by hand rather than sprayed by a machine, in the way light moves across an installation of zellige compared to any digitally printed or roller-applied alternative. But it is also felt: in the weight of the tile, in the irregularity of its edges, in the sense that something with this much physical presence could only have been made by a person who understood what they were making.
Our tiles come from the medina of Fez, Morocco — a UNESCO World Heritage city where zellige has been produced without interruption since the 14th century. The clay is drawn from a single deposit beneath the Saïss plain outside Fez, prized for seven centuries for its density and firing behavior. It is shaped by hand, air-dried in the open courtyards of the artisan workshop, and fired in wood-burning kilns at temperatures exceeding 1,000°C. The glazes are applied by maalems — master craftsmen who train for a decade before they are trusted to work on commissioned pieces.
Each tile is individually pressed from clay by hand. The resulting surface variation — subtle undulations, micro-texture, slight irregularity of form — is what makes zellige catch and hold light in the way it does. No machine produces this. No machine has ever produced this.
Cobalt, copper, iron, manganese, tin — natural mineral oxides applied by hand from formulas used for seven centuries. Fired into the glaze body at over 1,000°C. The color is not on the tile. It is in it — permanent, unfadeable, and impossible to replicate with synthetic pigments.
Traditional wood-burning kilns in Fez produce a firing environment that industrial kilns cannot replicate — the slight variations in temperature and atmosphere across the kiln contribute to the depth and complexity of the finished glaze. Every firing is unique. Every batch of tiles is, in the most literal sense, one of a kind.
Where We Work
From the oceanfront estates of Sagaponack to the historic manors of Greenwich, from the Gold Coast of Long Island's North Shore to the wooded compounds of Westchester County — the New York region is home to the most sophisticated residential design market in the country. Our artisan Moroccan zellige pool tiles are specified by the architects, interior designers, and pool builders working at this level.
America's most expensive zip codes by median home price. Sagaponack's typical home values reach $5.7 million. Southampton's Meadow Lane records median sale prices of $17.6 million. The pool installations in these oceanfront and estate properties are among the most architecturally considered in the country — and the frost-proof, UV-stable, artisan quality of our zellige tiles is precisely what these environments demand.
Greenwich's Golden Triangle — home to senior hedge-fund principals with average household incomes above $600,000 — consistently ranks among America's wealthiest communities. The private estate pools of Greenwich and Darien operate at a design standard that rewards authentic materials over fashionable ones. Our zellige pool tiles are specified by Greenwich architects for waterline installations, fountain walls, and outdoor terrace applications that need to perform through Connecticut winters.
The Gold Coast of Long Island's North Shore — Sands Point, Old Westbury, Manhasset, Brookville — represents the most established luxury residential market on the Island, with mean household incomes above $412,000 and estate properties that have defined American residential ambition since the Gilded Age. Pool and outdoor installation projects in these communities demand materials of equivalent pedigree.
Scarsdale — consistently ranked one of America's top 12 richest neighborhoods — and neighboring Bronxville and Chappaqua represent the quintessential New York suburb at its most architecturally distinguished. Pool installations in Westchester's estate properties must be frost-proof for genuine northeastern winters, artisan-quality for owners with global design exposure, and eco-friendly for one of America's most environmentally sophisticated residential markets.
New Jersey's Bergen County — home to Saddle River, Alpine, and the estates of the Palisades — is among the wealthiest residential communities in the northeastern United States. The private pools of Saddle River's gated estates and Alpine's hillside compounds are year-round outdoor features that require frost-proof tiles with the durability and beauty to serve multi-generational properties.
The Hudson Valley's historic river estates and the private communities of Millbrook and Tuxedo Park represent a quieter, deeper strain of New York luxury — properties that have been in the same families for generations, where the design language favors permanence over trend and authentic materials over fashionable ones. Our zellige tiles are entirely at home in this vocabulary — warm, artisan, and built to endure.
Applications
Our Moroccan zellige pool tiles are specified across the full range of aquatic, exterior, and interior architectural applications in New York area luxury residences. Each surface below represents a distinct environment where the specific properties of kiln-fired zellige — frost resistance, UV stability, mineral color permanence, artisan surface depth — make it the definitive material choice.
The waterline is where the pool announces itself. Visible from every angle — from within the water, from the pool deck, from the terrace, from the guest room above — it defines the visual register of the entire outdoor space. Our frost-proof zellige produces a waterline that shimmers and shifts with the movement of the water, catching the particular quality of northeastern light — the bright sharp light of a Hamptons summer afternoon, the low golden light of a Hudson Valley autumn morning — in ways no flat, factory-pressed tile can approach. A single course of zellige at the waterline transforms the character of the pool permanently and completely.
Zellige stair risers on pool entry steps are among the most photographed and admired details in luxury pool design. The vertical face of each step becomes a canvas for geometric pattern, painted motif, or color composition — and a sequence of hand-painted zellige risers descending into a Hamptons or Greenwich pool creates a moment of artisan craft that becomes the pool's signature detail. Frost-proof for northeastern winters, certified for permanent wet-area installation, and available in any pattern or colorway your project requires.
In New York's four-season climate, the heated spa or hot tub is used year-round — through the autumn evenings of the Hudson Valley, the winter evenings of Westchester, and the off-season weekends of the Hamptons when the pool itself is closed. The thermal and chemical demands of spa environments are among the most rigorous in residential tile installation. Our kiln-fired zellige handles them with ease, providing artisan beauty in the most private and intimate spaces of the outdoor environment.
Zellige is the original fountain tile — developed specifically for permanent use in and around water in the great riad gardens and palace courts of Morocco and Andalusia. In the walled gardens and courtyard pools of Greenwich estates and Long Island manor houses, a zellige-tiled fountain wall or basin brings historical resonance, artisan beauty, and material permanence that no manufactured alternative achieves. Frost-proof for year-round outdoor installation throughout the New York region.
Frost-proof zellige floor tiles are specified for outdoor terraces, loggia floors, courtyard paving, pool deck borders, and outdoor kitchen surfaces throughout the New York region. The vitrified clay body endures the full range of northeastern weather — from humid July afternoons in Southampton to February hard freezes in Westchester — without cracking, fading, or losing the visual quality of the installation. The mineral warmth of Fez clay is as beautiful underfoot as it is at the water's edge.
Garden stairways, retaining wall faces, entry approach risers, and boundary wall details across the full outdoor architectural environment of the New York-area estate. Hand-painted zellige stair risers bring a moment of artisan craft to garden terraces and entry sequences that elevates every approach to the house — a detail that rewards close attention and holds its beauty across every season.
In the colonial and Georgian residences of Greenwich and Westchester, in the Shingle Style manors of the Hamptons, and in the historic townhouses of Manhattan's Upper East Side and Tribeca, the fireplace surround is the most architecturally significant wall surface in the room. Zellige brings an artisan depth, a mineral richness, and a historical resonance to this surface that no factory tile achieves — making it the material of choice for the most considered interior renovation projects in the New York region.
A zellige-tiled master bathroom shower is one of the most impactful material decisions available in a New York-area luxury renovation. The irregular surface of hand-pressed zellige catches the light in a wet room as compellingly as it does at a pool waterline — creating a shower environment of genuine artisan depth. Fully waterproof, non-porous when grouted, and rated for permanent wet-area wall installation. Available in any colorway in our full palette, from crisp cobalt and white to the warm terracotta tones that complement the natural materials of Hudson Valley and Westchester homes.
The kitchen backsplash is the most viewed surface in the most-used room in the house — and in the renovated kitchens of Hamptons summer homes, Westchester estate houses, and Manhattan townhouses, it is increasingly the material detail that defines the entire room's character. A hand-painted zellige backsplash resists grease, heat, and moisture while providing a visual complexity and mineral richness that stone, glass, and mass-ceramic alternatives cannot match. The room that has a zellige backsplash is the room everyone remembers.
Sustainability
The luxury homeowners and architects of the New York metropolitan region are among the most environmentally informed buyers in the world. The Hamptons, the Hudson Valley, and Westchester County all have strong traditions of environmental stewardship and conservation — and the buyers commissioning significant residential projects in these communities bring a sophisticated sustainability lens to every material specification. Our Moroccan zellige tiles meet that lens honestly, without greenwashing, and with the full transparency of a production process that has been openly practiced in the same way for seven hundred years.
Single-source natural terracotta clay with no synthetic additives, no petroleum binders, no polymer coatings. Completely natural before firing, completely inert and stable afterward, and fully recyclable at end of a very long service life.
Every color produced from natural mineral oxides — cobalt, copper, iron, manganese, tin. No synthetic dyes, no heavy metal contamination at harmful levels, no volatile organic compounds. The color is embedded in the glaze body, permanent and non-leaching.
Kilns fueled with pruned olive and cedar wood — a carbon footprint fraction of the industrial gas-fired tunnel kilns used in mass ceramic production. The traditional craft process is, in this case, the cleanest available.
A properly installed zellige pool tile or fireplace surround will outlast virtually every alternative material. When measured over its service life, the environmental cost per year of use is negligible. Durability is the most honest sustainability argument any material can make — and zellige makes it compellingly.
For LEED-certified residential projects, Passive House programs, or clients with formal environmental documentation requirements, we provide complete material data sheets, production provenance records, and environmental product declarations upon request.
Bespoke Service
No two pools in Southampton are designed to the same proportions. No two kitchens in Greenwich share a stone selection. No two fireplace surrounds in Westchester call for the same color of blue. This is why we offer full custom fabrication on every order — producing tiles that are designed specifically for your project, in the precise color, pattern, size, and format that your architect or designer specifies.
Our standard palette covers the full classical Moroccan range — cobalt blue, turquoise, forest green, terracotta, ivory, charcoal, ochre, and manganese black. For New York-area projects, we develop custom glaze formulas matched to specific Pantone references, Farrow & Ball or Benjamin Moore paint selections, stone or marble samples, or interior fabric palettes. Your waterline can be any color your project requires.
Our maalems in Fez execute any historic Islamic geometric pattern at any scale — from classic eight-pointed stars and Andalusian vine borders to complex field compositions — as well as entirely original designs developed in collaboration with your design team. Pattern specifications apply equally to pool waterlines, shower walls, fireplace surrounds, and kitchen backsplashes.
Standard waterline formats: 4×4", 6×6", 4×8", 3×6" brick. Custom dimensions produced for non-standard waterline heights, curved pool profiles, vanishing-edge transitions, fireplace surround dimensions, shower niche inserts, and all bespoke installation conditions across pool, interior, and exterior applications.
Listello borders, rope moldings, corner returns, coping tiles, step nosings, fireplace hearth pieces, shower niche shelves, and all transition tiles — produced to coordinate with your field tile for fully resolved, architecturally coherent installations across every surface in your project.
Physical samples provided for design presentations, client approvals, and contractor mock-ups before any production commitment. For significant estate and renovation projects, we produce a full installation panel — allowing you to see your custom tile on your actual surface, in your actual light, before a single tile is permanently installed.
Minimum order: 50 sq ft · Lead time: 8 weeks standard · 10 weeks custom colorways or patterns
Technical
| Material | Handcrafted terracotta zellige clay, natural mineral glaze |
| Finish | Hand-pressed, hand-glazed, wood-kiln fired |
| Standard Sizes | 4×4", 6×6", 4×8", 3×6" — custom available |
| Thickness | 3/8" |
| Backing | Rigid resin backing for pool installation |
| Water Absorption | < 3% — pool-rated & frost-proof |
| Frost Resistance | Yes — fully rated for northeastern US freeze-thaw cycling |
| UV Resistance | Yes — mineral pigments, permanent color, no fading |
| Chemical Resistance | Chlorinated and saltwater pool rated · Heat and grease resistant for kitchen use |
| Pool Applications | Waterline · Step risers · Spa & hot tub surrounds · Fountain linings · Exterior pool walls |
| Interior Applications | Fireplace surround · Shower walls · Kitchen backsplash · Entry & floor tiles · Feature walls |
| Exterior Applications | Terrace floors · Outdoor stair risers · Garden walls · Entry approaches · Pool deck borders |
| Minimum Order | 50 sq ft |
| Lead Time | 8 weeks standard / 10 weeks custom |
| Origin | Handcrafted in Fez, Morocco |
| Price | Available upon request — contact us for project pricing |
Trade Program
We work directly and confidentially with the design and construction community throughout New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and the broader northeastern United States — from the pool builders and landscape architects of the Hamptons to the interior designers working on estate renovations in Greenwich, Westchester, and the Hudson Valley.
Begin Your Project
Our studio team works individually with each client — from the first conversation about color, pattern, and installation context through sample review, custom production, and final delivery. We welcome inquiries from architects, interior designers, landscape architects, pool builders, kitchen designers, and estate owners throughout New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and the broader northeastern United States.
From the oceanfront pools of Sagaponack and Southampton to the walled garden fountains of Greenwich and the historic manor terraces of Westchester and the Hudson Valley — the finest properties in the New York region are defined by the quality of every decision made in their creation. Our Moroccan zellige pool tiles bring to those decisions the one material quality that no factory tile has ever provided: the permanent, unmistakable mark of seven centuries of unbroken artisan mastery.
Request a Sample or QuoteMediterranean Pool Tiles · Handcrafted in Fez, Morocco · Delivered to the Hamptons, Greenwich, Westchester, Long Island & the New York Region
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