The owner purchased an oceanfront home 25 years ago and thought about trying to fix up the existing. After weathering the ocean storms for 20 years and looking at the structure through his eyes as a former structural professor, the owner opted for new. The owner loves Architecture and his other past positions were director of campus planning and trustee. With all of this he had been involved with many buildings, Architects, and Construction Companies.
We kept some of the flavor of the old home with the Southerly Ell and wrap around porches. We also were able to keep the height of the original home after some wrestling with the town whose zoning board wanted 12 feet removed from the height. Off of the ten feet wide wrap around porch, one can rest and catch the cool ocean breezes and get views off to the marshes in the west with the sunsets. Of course the views out to the Atlantic Ocean are wonderful and resting on the porches is very relaxing. The porch provides a way out to the beach with one tread down to a path leading to some landscape steps to a patio halfway down from the First Floor to the Basement. This original patio then has steps down to the beach. From another part of the porch one can descend a few steps down to an octagon deck set up to enjoy the evening sunsets. From this deck there is a path with the occasional step that leads down to the driveway.
The main entry doors and the garage doors are all deeply recessed to protect the doors from rainfall. The roof over the main entry is unique with a single valley sending water from the copper clad roof out and away from both the main entry and octagon deck. After entering the main entry, one can look all the way up the easy to climb U shaped stairs with two landings between floors. This view goes right from the basement to the attic and would make a great Escher drawing. Easy and graceful flow vertically is well achieved in this home.
On the First Floor one can see through the double doors into the Dining/Family/Kitchen area and out to the Atlantic Ocean. This classical axis one is greeted with at the top of the stairs on the First Floor is great. The Living Room is quite long and next to the Dining/Family. They both have a long axis pointing out to the Atlantic Ocean with glass on the ocean side providing great views all through these rooms and at their entries. There is a fireplace with two sided opening serving both of these rooms and quite a bit of stone surround and wood boxes flanking the fireplaces.
The Kitchen counters are soapstone and the floors are hickory throughout the house but for the bathrooms which have tile underfoot. Around the Kitchen counter there are windows on three sides of the main Kitchen. The walls and ceilings are plaster and cover a hybrid insulation which starts with foam and then has some traditional fiberglass batt fill the balance of the cavities. There are a number of 4 foot offsets scattered around which provide for both view opportunities and structural stiffening which is helped along by the plywood behind plaster that is scattered throughout the inside walls to provide shear walls. Many oceanfront homes shake a little in the wind. This is stiff enough to be still during the ocean blows.
Overall this is a gracious and welcoming home and very much the result of an owner passionate about Architecture in general, and of course had quite the labor of love with this, his family’s oceanfront home.
