A client whose home was damaged by Hurricane Sandy asked me to collaborate with them and their builder on a new home by the water early this year. We had architectural drawings, but how do you establish a unique vision for both the outside and inside when you have a small footprint and on top of it all stay on budget? Knowing the clients and having a sense of their style, a big wish was to avoid the cookie cutter beach house design of grey weathered shingles, double hung windows and round white columns. We began discussing options that were easy to maintain and also offered savings on energy costs.

Three Crucial Design Decisions
The main living spaces on the first floor of the new home consisted of one large open space and a guest suite. For the open spaces, we had to consider not just the scheme for the kitchen but for all three areas in this one open space: living, dining and kitchen. Consistency of color was the first decision. The second decision we made was to adopt a sleek, contemporary scheme that would compliment our client’s cosmopolitan and professional sensibilities. Finally, we chose the focal point of the space to be the stunning view of the ocean and to integrate all the hues that living on the water brings into the space, so a neutral, black, white and grey were our color choices. Pops of color will be introduced with accessories so that they could be changed without great cost to the client. Ebony porcelain tile that resembles dark, stained wood was installed on the entire first floor, a practical choice when living in a sandy environment.

Picking Kitchen Appliances
Next we began looking at kitchen cabinet designs and settled on a timeless and simple shaker style – chunky stainless hardware balances the cabinet’s height and width. The layout of the kitchen features practical placement of the Thermador double wall oven and warming drawer, black farmhouse sink, professional Wolf gas cooktop with a contemporary Futuro vent hood and silencing internal muffler – hidden under the large island is a Sharp slide out microwave. Stainless Steel Fisher and Paykel refrigerator/freezer and Bosch dishwasher complete the work triangle.

Now the cook’s focus is towards the beach and water as she prepares meals using the island as her primary work station. We took out the ‘over the sink window’ as homes are close together and lack an interesting view and instead placed a back lit shelf to display items. Notice too there are no electrical outlets breaking up the beveled subway tile backsplash. Instead we asked the builder to place strip outlets under the upper cabinets. This way the client can plug in appliances anywhere on the beautiful black and white granite countertop.