This 7,000-square-foot Bethany Beach house is not just a nod to Cape Cod—it’s an unbridled homage. As project designer Christopher L. Pattey aptly puts it, “This home evokes the vernacular of shingled seaside homes and cottages of the New England coast and melds traditional forms and elements with graceful curves and subtle whimsical details.”
Pattey says the owners desired a more conventional solution to the typical oversized “beach-house-on-stilts approach.” A senior associate with architectural firm Becker Morgan Group, he worked with Dewson Construction Co. to conjure a sui generis interpretation of shingle style.
The shingled home is a uniquely American resort form that emerged in the late 19th century. Ubiquitous on Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard, the beloved residential style somehow pulls off coastal casualness even though it often demonstrates a kind of grandeur—as well as high style, eclectic shapes, rooflines, and windows. The fact that the whole affair, which can be a study in complexity and asymmetry, is typically wrapped in natural (and eventually weathered) cedar, communicates New England restraint, making the whole effort cohere.
For this five-bedroom oceanfront showplace, the team collaborated with the client to install a menu of shingle-style elements: The exterior boasts both angular and sloping gables, eyebrow windows and oval windows with muntins, grand white columns, numerous dormers and setbacks, and a deep porch (one of many) capped by an arch to frame the grassy dunes. One bay window is topped by a small copper roof, and at the apex of several gables, the rectangular shingles give way to diamond shapes; it’s a subtle finishing touch that showcases Pattey’s refined eye.
Given all these inventive moments, one can quickly see the ways in which Pattey pushed the shingle form. The home is considerably more playful than the enviable shingled home featured in the recent, much-watched Netflix series “The Perfect Couple,” starring Nicole Kidman as the lady of the manor. That thirst-trap home was actually located in Chatham, Cape Cod, standing in for Nantucket. (For contrast, design and film buffs might want to take a look at Woody Allen’s 1978 drama “Interiors”: A more austere shinglestyle home, located on the beach in the Hamptons, serves as a key location.)
Dewson project manager Steve deBrabander points out that the exterior design elements prove just as stimulating when you’re inside. For example, a four-paned eyebrow window, which is set in the middle of the roofline at the rear of the home, on the inside extends into sculptural element that looks like a soft-edged inverted cone. The shape floats pleasingly above the living room. It took two craftsmen two days to complete this detail, deBrabander says.
Dewson has worked with Becker Morgan a half-dozen times over the last decade, so the principals fell into a familiar rapport. DeBrabander notes that the team was in constant contact with the homeowners, and that they were game for every imaginative choice.
Envisioned as a couple’s home that could easily welcome an extended family for generations to come, the project has a forever feeling: DeBrabander explains that the firm coaxed the home “into the future”—toward sustainability, by utilizing “better, more lasting products.” While the roof is covered in real red Western cedar, the siding is NuCedar, a synthetic chosen for its durability. The decking is clad in ipe, a rich wood prized for its resilience. Sturdy mahogany was chosen for the front door and for the entrance’s barrel-vaulted ceiling—an architectural detail not usually seen in shingle-style homes—that delivers a pop of surprise.
Of the strategic mix of natural and nonnatural materials, Dewson’s marketing director Meg Grieshaber explains, “The combination of those materials allows the overall aesthetic that you’re looking for, but with that sustainability aspect—it’s a little less maintenance, especially for a vacation home. It allows the homeowners to have a certain piece of mind.” No one wants a beach holiday to turn into a job.
The allure of shingle style shows no signs of slowing down. Next up for Dewson: Yet another shingle home in collaboration with Becker Morgan, this time in Rehoboth Beach.
Related: This Brandywine Creek Townhouse Embraces Asymmetrical Designs
