The heritage Manuka Pool was refilled after a $2.4 million upgrade on Monday morning and, most importantly, it got the tick of approval from its longest tenured patron.
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Merv Knowles is the only person who's had a chance to walk in an unfilled Manuka Pool, both when it was first opened in 1931 and after its current revamp.
Mr Knowles has swum in Manuka Pool every day it's been open in every season he's spent in Canberra.
He's now 97 and nothing has stopped him hopping into his favourite pool, except its recent closure for retiling.
The decision was made to upgrade the 89-year-old pool to ensure it remains up to modern health and safety standards.
Other than the tiles, the pool has had a new filtration plant installed along with new inlets, an underground balance tank and new seating.
When it finally reopens on November 30 patrons will most likely notice first its new coat of paint. The whole building has been returned to its original colour scheme of Brunswick green and salmon.
Marrying up the heritage pool with modern technology proved to be a challenge for the dozens of contractors involved.
The modern filtration system transferred water back into the pool much faster than previously.
Deeper and wider gutters were necessary to remove water from the pool quickly enough and prevent it flooding.
But perhaps the biggest challenge, which was responsible for the delay in opening, was finding appropriate tiles.
Modern pools almost exclusively use rectangular tiles, but Manuka needed square tiles. Most companies had long ago done away with the stencils used to make square, swimming pool grade tiles.
After a worldwide search appropriate tiles were discovered and sourced from the Czech Republic.
Mr Knowles was very impressed by the return of the depth markers ranging from '4ft' to '9ft' and the 'DEEP' and 'SHALLOW' markers which had been lost in the preceding decades. Each one was recreated by an artist.
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Manuka Pool regularly left assessors astonished by its good condition prior to the upgrade and the solid foundations meant the new works were achieved with much less difficulty than anticipated.
Mr Knowles knew the two men responsible for tiling the pool and putting in the original staircase, they were neighbours. For one it was his first ever professional job, it's unlikely he could have foreseen his handiwork lasting 89 years.
Mr Knowles' father, the late Sir George Knowles, was the head of the Attorney-General's department and "a keen Canberran".
Sir George's friend, the head of the health department at the time, had the water in Canberra's rivers tested and both men decided the children of Canberra needed a swimming pool.
Mr Knowles would head down to the pool with his siblings every morning at 6am and he hasn't stopped since.
His lap count may have diminished over the years, from 36 to 24 and now to 12. But the pool's first and only life member expects to be there on November 30 jostling to be the first one in the pool, just as he was in 1931.
"It's a habit now and I've enjoyed incredibly good health I think mostly because of the swimming," Mr Knowles said.
