Preserve pool’s early years remembered by first manager

Duane Hookom still remembers the buzz around the grand opening of The Preserve’s sand-bottom pool in 1975 – and the role he played in it.

Then a college student and seasoned lifeguard, Hookom was hired as the pool’s first manager. He started before opening day, working with Ralph Nesbitt – whose family farmed the land where The Preserve now sits – on landscaping, fencing, and other final details.

Now, as The Preserve pool celebrates its 50th season, Hookom – an Eden Prairie native – is reflecting on those early years and the community that formed around it.

“He was sort of the groundskeeper,” Hookom said of Nesbitt, who died in 2004. “I helped him do maintenance stuff, construction, putting up fence, and a little bit of landscaping around the pool.”

Hookom also worked closely with the engineers who designed the pool’s filtration and chemical systems.

“I got to find out about how to maintain it, how to run the chemicals and backwash the filters and all of that kind of stuff,” he said.

After the pool opened, Hookom split his time between managing and lifeguarding. The community, he recalled, couldn’t wait to dive in.

“It just became this kind of community gathering place for families and kids,” he said. “It really, I think, added to the whole sense of community for the Preserve area.”

The design was striking: a sand-bottom pool, Olympic-length lap lanes, and a separate 13-foot diving well.

“I think it was very unique,” he said. “Probably equally unique to have a facility like that within a planned unit development like The Preserve.”

Hookom worked at the pool for a couple of summers while in college and still remembers the kids who showed up nearly every day.

“The residents and the people were great,” he said. “It was fun working there.”

Although he hasn’t walked through the pool area in years, Hookom said he recently passed by during a bike event and was happy to see families still gathering.

“It’s good to see that there’s still great crowds of people enjoying that facility,” he said. “It really was – and still is – such a unique place.”

Recently, Hookom received a text from former lifeguard Wendy Holte Anderson, who had come across an old photo while going through some files. Believed to be from a Fourth of July parade at The Preserve, the image shows Hookom with an accordion and hat, surrounded by fellow lifeguards and friends atop an antique truck once owned by Holte Anderson’s father, Len Holte.

In a separate memory, Hookom recalled attending his friend Phil Sailor’s senior guitar recital at the University of Minnesota, where a woman from The Preserve recognized him at the reception.

“She had seen me many times at the pool,” he said, “and when she saw me at the reception following the performance, she blurted out, ‘Duane, I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on.’”

He followed up in the same email, writing, “This might not be appropriate to share.”

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More to read: The Preserve’s sandy-bottom pool marks 50 years as a community gathering spot.