Just about anything is available to lease these days. In need of a private plane to jet off to some far-off locale? Countless chartered flight options can be found at the click of a button! Hoping to vacation on a boat? Airbnb has got you covered! Want to live like Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) from “Twilight” or “Stranger Things’” Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) for a night? Their onscreen homes can be booked for temporary stays! And now, even swimming pools are procurable for short-term periods thanks to Swimply, an innovative platform that offers backyards, tennis courts, pools and other outdoor spaces to interested parties for nominal hourly fees. When the company officially launched in 2019, The New Yorker quipped, “Want to swim in a random stranger’s backyard pool, but without getting arrested, shot at, or developing a skin disease? There’s now an app for that.” All joking aside, Swimply certainly found a target audience!
The company is the brainchild of New Jersey denizen Bunim Laskin, who came up with the inventive concept one hot day in 2017 during his college summer break when he noticed that a neighbor’s pool was sitting largely unused. The then 19-year-old approached the owner with a proposition – he’d perform routine maintenance on the pool in exchange for being allowed to swim there regularly with his family. It wasn’t long before more neighbors joined in on the plan and Swimply was born, with wanna-be waders initially connecting with pool owners via a rudimentary website Laskin built using his bar mitzvah money. To secure listings, he explained to The New Yorker, “I went on Google Earth and searched eighty pools nearby. I knocked on eighty doors. I got seventy-six slammed doors. And we started with our first four pools.” That number quickly grew and within a few months, the intrepid teen had dropped out of college to work full-time on the business, eventually launching the Swimply app with business partner Asher Weinberger.
Operating like an Airbnb for pools, The Sydney Morning Herald explains the Swimply process as such, “Hosts set the price, list amenities and outline provisos, such as the number of swimmers allowed and whether there’s access to the house (to use the loo, for example). Swimply takes 15 percent of the rental fee as commission and teams up with pool companies to do inspections for safety and hygiene.”
The pandemic proved a boon to the company’s growth as those sheltering at home in crowded cities sought outdoor spaces that allowed for socially distant recreation. By 2021, according to TechCrunch, the app had garnered $10 million in Series A investments and was “operating in a total of 125 U.S. markets, two markets in Canada and five markets in Australia.”
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Image Credit: Swimply And now Laskin can add another feather to the company’s hat as the Swimply catalog has procured a famous listing! The new owner of Villa Flora, aka the Marietta, Ga. pad that portrays the LaRusso mansion on “Cobra Kai,” has offered his backyard oasis for lease!
For $100 an hour, ardent fans can make like Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and enjoy the estate’s entire sprawling 1.1-acre lot, partaking of such luxe amenities as a bocce ball court, meandering gardens, multiple chaises, a gas grill, a Big Green Egg, a greenhouse and an outdoor dining room complete with a television and ample seating. The pool itself, which is saltwater, boasts a tanning shelf, a shaded area and a large shallow end perfect for lounging.
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Image Credit: Swimply For additional fees, swimmers can also make use of the pool’s heating system, the hot tub, the fire pit, fresh towels and the spectacular primary suite shower, a sumptuous brick and stone enclave framed by an old masonry panel that originally stood in the property’s garden.
The location is available for groups of up to 10, with extra guests welcome at $5 per head per hour. Enveloped with abundant foliage and a picturesque stone accent wall, the yard makes for a decidedly secluded retreat. And nearly all of it has been featured on “Cobra Kai!”
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Image Credit: Swimply Initially built in 1968 but thoroughly reimagined in 2008, the Tuscan-inspired estate is one of the show’s most prominent sites, featured in nearly every episode.
Purported to be in Encino, where the original “Karate Kid” film was set, the residence can actually be found about 20 miles north of Atlanta at 130 Woodlawn Dr. NE. It is there that a grown-up Daniel, now managing the high-end LaRusso Auto Group (“We kick the competition!”), lives with his wife, Amanda (Courtney Henggeler), and children, Samantha (Mary Mouser) and Anthony (Griffin Santopietro), on the series, which takes place 34 years after the events of the first “Karate Kid” movie. (Please remember this is a private home. Do not trespass or bother the residents or the property in any way.)
A few changes are made to the dwelling to sell it as being located in California on the show, including dressing it with large palm trees and other SoCal-appropriate greenery. As production designer Ryan Berg told the Cobra Kai Kompanion podcast, “Shooting Atlanta for L.A. is not the world’s easiest thing.” Despite those minor alterations, the residence is thoroughly recognizable as its onscreen self. And fans who book a swim are afforded the unique opportunity of experiencing it in a genuinely up-close-and-personal way!
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Image Credit: Swimply “Cobra Kai” is not the property’s only claim to fame, though! Home improvement aficionados will be delighted to learn that the pad’s 2008 reimagining was the subject of the season two episode of HGTV’s “My Big Amazing Renovation” titled “Spanish Style Oasis in Atlanta” (currently streaming on Discovery Plus).
The place also boasts some significant political and sports connections. As then-owner Beth Brooks explained in the episode, the residence was once owned by a wealthy local lobbyist who counted everyone from President Ronald Reagan to championship golfer Arnold Palmer as frequent guests. In fact, President Jimmy Carter is even said to have helped lay the bricks for the masonry wall that now encloses the primary suite shower.
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Image Credit: Swimply Interested parties who want to take their “Cobra Kai” experience to the next level can rent out Villa Flora as a whole for $940 to $2,700 a night via Airbnb! Featuring six bedrooms (all ensuite) plus an additional bath spread throughout an impressive 9,124 square feet, the property can sleep up to 12 guests. Residential highlights include a professional Chef’s kitchen, a garden atrium capped by a skylight towering 22 feet above the indoor pond below and eight smart television sets. Lavish perks like private chef service for the onsite woodfired pizza oven can also be arranged for an extra fee.
But don’t go throwing a pool party like Samantha did in “Cobra Kai’s” second episode, “Strike First,” while you’re on the premises. As Daniel told her in the show, soirees at the property are strictly prohibited.