Which St. Augustine rentals actually have a pool?

Four of our homes put you next to water that isn't the Atlantic. One has its own private pool behind the house, one sits in a beachfront complex with a heated pool, another has ocean views and a shared complex pool, and a fourth is a beach cottage with community pool access. The rest of this page is about which of the four suits the trip you're actually taking.

The house with its own pool, and the ten people it fits

St. Augustine House: Private Pool, Beach & Pets is the only home here with a pool nobody else can walk into. Four bedrooms, sleeps ten, minutes from Crescent Beach, with a fire pit, a home theater and a garage set up for games. Pets are welcome.

Crescent Beach sits south of the city on A1A, down past the St. Augustine Beach stretch, and the practical effect of staying down there is that your beach day and your pool day happen at the same address. When the surf comes up rough or the wind turns the sand into a sandblaster, which happens more often on this coast than the brochures admit, the pool is the reason nobody's trip is ruined.

The ten-person capacity matters too. This is the only pool home in the group that can hold two families or a reunion, and it's the one to beat for that trip. If you're two people looking for a quiet soak, you'd be renting a lot of house you won't use.

Two bedrooms, three balconies, ocean out front and a pool between you and the surf

If the pool is important but the ocean is the real draw, look at St Augustine 2BR Condo with Ocean View and Pool. It sleeps six, with two bedrooms and two and a half baths, and it sits steps from beach access. There are three private balconies, which is an unusual number for a condo this size and means the morning coffee crowd and the afternoon nap crowd don't have to negotiate.

The pool here is shared with the rest of the complex, along with tennis courts, shuffleboard and a clubhouse. There's a full kitchen and an in-unit washer and dryer, so a week doesn't require a laundromat run.

This is the one I'd point a family of four or five toward. You get the ocean view, the pool for the hour between the beach and dinner, and you're not managing a whole house.

Two bedrooms, a heated pool, and right on the beach

Beachfront 2 Bedroom Condo with Heated Pool sleeps five across two bedrooms and two and a half baths, and it sits directly on the beach at St. Augustine Beach. The heated pool means you're not at the mercy of the season — if the water's cold or the surf is rough, the pool is there regardless of the month.

This is the one to look at if you want true beachfront and a pool that's actually warm. Two bedrooms handles a family of four or five comfortably, and being on the sand rather than a walk from it changes the rhythm of the day in ways that are hard to overstate once you've done it.

Eight people, a five-minute walk to the sand, and a deck built for dinner

Beach Cottage 4BR Walk to Beach is a two-story, four-bedroom home that sleeps eight, with a private community pool, a wide upper deck, an outdoor shower for sandy feet and a gas grill. As the listing puts it, it was built for the kind of trip where nobody has to take the couch.

The outdoor shower is the detail I'd actually weigh. Anyone who has tried to get beach sand out of a rental's bathroom understands why. And the deck changes how the evenings go: with a grill and room for everyone at one table, you stop driving out for dinner every night, which on a week-long stay is both cheaper and calmer. Coffee, ice cream and a handful of restaurants are around the corner, Fiesta Falls miniature golf is close by, and the historic district is a short drive.

How to decide in about a minute

• Ten people, pets, and you want the pool to yourselves: the private-pool house near Crescent Beach.
• Right on the beach with a heated pool, five people: the beachfront two-bedroom condo.
• Four to six, ocean views, pool for the late afternoon: the two-bedroom condo with three balconies.
• Eight, cooking outside, five minutes from the sand: the four-bedroom beach cottage.

Two things to settle before you book

Pool access varies by property and by season, so confirm it with us for your exact dates rather than assuming. Shared pools in condo and cottage complexes run on their own schedules and their own rules. We'll tell you where each pool is, who else uses it, and what's required before you arrive.

We've managed homes in this city for more than twenty years, we book direct, and someone answers the phone around the clock while you're here. If you tell us the dates, the headcount and how much the pool really matters, we'll tell you which of these four is right and whether one of them is even available.