We just had a 24' round installed and have a similiar problem I think. Because of the slope of our yard, the excavation left us with the front half of the pool almost a foot below the yard line. Not planning a deck anytime soon, just a 5x5 paved patio in front of the pool where the ladder will go. We're thinking we need to tear into the ground and grade it gradually down to the pool. This doesn't sound like fun because it's half of the pool and it looks like a lot of digging, but we'll do it if we have to.

Then we were just going to build a frame around the pool using some type of edging bricks and fill the space with river rock or something, over weed block fabric. I'd love to hear any other ideas too.