X-Flood Zone is how the property’s listed—could be like black diamond—hell if I’ll go down that slope. Yeah, but stay with me here: if the site’s 30-some feet above sea level, how’s that going to turn out? Got that ticket free, but I need facts!

Life’s short; phone home frequently.

So 30 feet plus four—is that high enough? How big’s the flood going to be? Act of god—got it. Maybe I should hire a drone operator and check out the views from thirty-four feet? Forty-three or fifty-two feet even? See where that gets us.

Is there a jitney we can catch rides to the beach? Skateboards? Old Schwinn bicycles? There’s a service you can order for setting up a beach tent w/ chairs—a clear sign the Outer Banks have become far too gentrified—like at Cancun, only no waiters in white bearing piña coladas.

In Southern Shores, does one always wear formal attire on the beach?

Site

I misstated the facts (as some Congressional Republicans say about the last election, or the New York Governor says about those exaggerating women) when I implied I’d be siting the house for best solar orientation. That would require the place to run longways on the site, east-to-west (top to bottom on the survey above) with the main exposure facing south—so to control unwanted sunlight in the summer months. That isn’t happening. My bad.

Unfortunately, the views lie to the east and west… why bother building if you’re raising champagne glasses at your neighbor to the south? Making matters worse, the site’s best view, bar none, is toward the west—glorious sunsets over Currituck Sound but everyone will be wearing sunglasses noon til sundown.

Our house on Lake Barcroft was sun-challenged when we first moved in—oriented southwest to northeast and sitting sideways on the site, violating everything the Clemson professors taught. Getting morning light in the winter took work with a tall shed roof and clerestory. We do get nice moonrise views in the fall, and once the trees have dropped their leaves, mid-winter sunlight pours in. No solar panels on the roof, though. No point under all these trees.

The Southern Shores property has only shrubs, unlike the majority of the development down close to the Sound. How fast do live oaks grow, anyway?

Without the live oaks, the best you can mitigate against a blazing July afternoon on the Outer Banks are deeply roofed porches, or massive AC units. Since I’m partial to deep porches, that’s not a huge problem, however they don’t come cheap, and the wood decks take a beating. There’s an entire industry on the Outer Banks replacing old decks.

In South Carolina, I remember you could pick out the poor folks’ homes—the clapboard dogtrots that were never painted—and the leaning tobacco barns.

John Looney House—photo by Chris from U.S.A.

“John Looney house… in Ashville, Alabama. On the National Register of Historic Places.” from Wikipedia article on dogtrots

Cedar shingles on the traditional Outer Banks houses were left to gray-out, and still today you can count the painted balcony railings and decks on one hand. And easily spot the plastic balcony railings ‘cause they’re white. I hate plastic; it’s as bad as Trex.

Psst, I hate Trex.

Our previous house in Duck had been a rental, and it had labels on everything from linen closet to the kitchen sink—‘don’t dump grease.’ We left that one for visitors, and ‘spray your feet’ by the hose strategically located by the downstairs entrance. You’d be amazed.

The contractor whose crew painted that house in Duck insisted we use an opaque stain rather than typical paint. The stain was absorbed deeper into the cedar siding and didn’t get scoured by nor’easters quite as fast. Entropy is an almost visible activity this close to the ocean. And the salt air eats galvanized steel for breakfast. No one in a right mind would think of having a metal roof—all that money and you can sit in the yard watching it turn to rust.

These days, if you employ benches replacing the balcony railings on a deck, you’d need to raise the backs of benches 3 feet above the seats to keep within the intent of the building code, meaning 5 feet high, or you’ll be aiding and abetting the personal injury lawyers. Picture the little munchkin, dripping ice cream cone in hand, standing on the seat…

Oops, there goes the view for folks sitting down inside—and any librarians in the family. [1] Perhaps placing benches on the screen porch at either end might work.

Re. bedrooms, the Banks thrust east so far into the Atlantic, the sun seems to rise early—so how long you gonna lay in the rack, bubba? Depends on how late the party was, ‘cause you don’t surf and none of your geezer friends do either.

So how big do bedrooms in a beach house need to be? Larger than the bunks on a submarine, but smaller than at Versailles, since Louis XIV won’t be staying over. Sadly, the U.S. is addicted to king-size beds, so two bedrooms at minimum will need to accommodate those. We don’t seem to be any getting smaller in the U.S., despite the best medical advice—but then not all of us are getting vaccinated, so that’s not a shock.

Ditto bathrooms. You’d think everyone dreams of living large.

Living rooms, on the other hand, one shouldn’t stint on. Nor kitchens. In some views, hanging a hammock under a roof will suffice for the sleeping arrangements, but you need space during the day at the beach—with as much operable glass as is affordable in the direction of the views.

The plan is to rent it through the summer season, and take it back come fall. so while we won’t be dealing with the summer solstice, renters will.

The “R” months mean fresh oysters—September through December, and deserve a legitimate kitchen in which to prepare them—and strong shucking gloves. Cooking with gas isn’t an option, unless it’s delivered in large propane trucks. Gas grills are less polluting than charcoal, but they still give off CO2. If Elon Musk would only focus his attention on the house instead of dreaming about Mars, I’d be a happy man.

The best sealing doors remain out-swinging ones when the wind is blowing against them. Sliding glass doors are harder to keep from leaking in major wind events, though with the stiffening building codes (led by the Florida Building Code for obvious reasons) they have improved. Their chief advantage is they don’t get in the way.

Initial Doodles

I start most projects with a structural grid, though I strive not to be a slave to it. 16’ x 16’ looked like a decent overall planning module for a stick-built house. Not like Buckminster Fuller and his geodesic domes—no need to plan a space ship—but if nothing else, it helps to visualize the scale of spaces. I’ve been designing to grids since grad school. Shooting for a 2,000-2,500 square foot house, the footprint, minus decks is 1,000-1,250 for a two story house. 16’ x 16’ x 4 modules = 1,024 SF and 16’ x 16’ x 5 = 1,280 SF.

4 x 16’ = 64’. The site, at its narrow end is 100’. Take away the two 15’ side yard setbacks = 70’ max. So that’s where I started.

The sketches are for testing. Typically, four or so options begin the process. Some get merged or morphed, and others are dropped. Once moving past the plans to see what an option might look like opens another round of morphing and merging. What seems great in plan often sucks (that’s the technical term) in elevation.

This early—before we’ve even seen the site—any or all of the following might be DOA by next week.

[1] Throughout the universe, all librarians are five feet tall. This is a fact I had to learn designing libraries.

The following sketches are oriented with the front facing toward the top—the reason the survey is upside down. My bad again.