In 1982 I first vacationed on the Outer Banks, the Atlantic beaches of the northern two thirds of North Carolina. After my first trip I decided that one day I'd have a place there. In October 1997, I started the process of making that a reality, focusing on a nearby beach village named Duck (after its bygone days as a mecca for duck hunters). Duck's main virtue to me was that it had been developed only recently -- Highway 12, the only access road, was only paved in the mid-80's -- and it lacked the boardwalks and crowds. Most of Duck is zoned only for single-family dwellings and most lots are at least 1/3 acre, so houses aren't as on top of one another as they are in other beaches. The fact that Duck was one of the closest beaches to the Washington, DC area, where I lived at the time, helped make my location decision as well.
I first looked at available houses but most were originally built with a particular set of thoughts in mind: as beach houses are almost by definition second houses most of them are built cheaply. Further, as most people choose to rent out their beach houses weekly during the summer, the houses are built more with an eye to being renter-proof than being comfortable. The result was that the existing inventory was not only expensive, it wasn't all that nice.
The alternative was to buy a lot and get a house built. After having heard many house-building horror stories I didn't really relish the thought of hiring a builder,but it seemed that I had no choice if I wanted the house that I could enjoy. Ralph Zeiss at Duck's Real Estate (zeissdux@interpath.com) patiently showed me lots and was in general a cornucopia of advice. I soon found an oceanfront lot that was only a bit more expensive than I'd hoped for, and by late October 1997 I owned a piece of the beach.
But what to build? Beach houses on the Outer Banks are oddly designed, using what's called a reverse floor plan, "reverse" because the bedrooms are on the first floor and the living room, kitchen, dining room and den are on the second floor. Further, these houses are built on pilings, often with a kind of "zeroth floor" with just enough space to accommodate the hot water heater, furnace, and other utility items. As a result, it's difficult to find books of standard house plans for OBX (the local abbreviation for "Outer Banks") type homes. A good number of NC beach houses are simple "beach boxes." They use a simple rectangular design and are basically big cabins on stilts. In fact, this is about the only design anyone built here until about 15 years ago.
In the past decade or so, however, beach houses have gotten a lot bigger and more expensive, causing their owners to want a bit of flair in their design. Unfortunately, not all of those owners actually consulted a designer about design, leading to some, uh, unfortunate-looking dwellings. (Hey, who knows, maybe they're really nice inside. Yeah, that's it.) Designers sounded expensive, though, so where to get a decent design, as I wanted something more than a beach box? My answer was to buy a couple of disposable cameras and drive up and down every road in Duck, taking pictures of things that I liked and didn't like. In the process, I stumbled across a house that was my perfect house, just the house I wanted.
It was a basic house design, nicely built. But what made it perfect for me was that it had a kind of lighthouse/tower part on the side, a separate third floor surrounded by windows. I figured that this would be the perfect place to sit high above the world and work -- Master Of All I Could See and all that. Ralph pointed me at the fellow who'd built it, Kaz Romanczyk of Waldt Construction. (No internet, but call him at (252) 491-2204 if you need a house built.) After looking into building a similar place, Kaz told me that unfortunately the house was too tall, and could not be built anywhere else in Duck (including of course the lot that I'd bought). Curses! Surrendering, I hired Clair Sutton of Sandcastle Design (252 261-2766), to lay out a house.
She had a lot of specifications to meet: the house needed to include five bedrooms, 4.5 baths, my office, and the usual other rooms. (Why so many bedrooms? So I can sell it if need be. Small houses don't sell as they have no chance on the rental market.) The lot only allowed the house to be 46 feet wide, and the height restriction held it to no higher than 35 feet. She also had to fit it all into 2800 square feet. As we were working long-distance, we did a lot of fedexing designs back and forth but in time she got the design done, and a nice design it was. The blueprints showed a house that would be within my budget while providing both an attractive outside and good living space inside. (My office even turned out to be the highest room in the house after all -- although by only 16 inches.)
Then Kaz started building. You know all of those horror stories that you've heard about builders? Kaz was the exception. As the house took shape, he'd ask me to come down and see if what the plans said on paper was really what I had in my head. And when the plans didn't match what was in my head, Kaz just changed the plans. I don't think I've ever heard the phrase "change fee" or "penalty" from the man's mouth. If I got a new idea in mid-stream, he priced it out for me and if I could afford it then we went with it. It was a pleasure working with him from start to finish.
Then, as the building was just about done, I was all of a sudden faced with dozens more decisions -- what kinds of lights to use? What color should the counters be? So I turned to Denise Cover, an interior design expert that I knew through her sister, a co-worker. Denise then did a great job outfitting the inside.
The process wasn't really completely done until late June/early July 1998. More than a year's journey, but it was fun.
Why do this Web site about it? A few reasons. For one, it was an excuse to do a bit of HTML and play with several tools for putting together simple pages: Notepad (simple, but never an unpleasant surprise), Word 97 (a piece of garbage for HTML editing, it once decided to destroy every single hyperlink in a document, and I never did figure out why -- must have been the humidity), FrontPage 97 (the "Borg Collective" of Web editors: it's first official act is always to "assimilate" your entire Web site into what FP thinks is the best structure, whether it fits your perspective or not) and FrontPad (excellent in many ways but dumb in simple things like re-saving documents, the trick is to drag a document into FrontPad, "save" then works correctly). For another, my folks live a goodly distance away -- probably 10-12 hours' drive -- and while they were very interested in the progress of the process, there was no way they'd get to see it. Finally, it's a scrapbook of the visits. Like many people, I have a box of snapshots in a closet that I never look at. Once I got a digital camera, I asked myself, "will I just end up with a directory of snapshots that I'll never look at?" It seemed that the smartest way to organize the snapshots was with a bit of HTML.