Bethany Beach House
This beach house getaway along Delaware’s Bethany shoreline by Alexander Design Studios needed a new way to tell the owners that the weekend had arrived. With ocean waves and morning sunrises to the east, the owners asked for a landscape on the western side that would strengthen and enhance the architecture, linking the facade’s bold surfaces and central atrium while leading eyes and spirits toward the broader vista. A new landscape entrance might serve as appetizer, groundwork for the panoramic views and salty ocean breezes to come.
While respecting the architect’s intent to turn interior spaces away from resort streets and developed lots, FTLA’s design uses the easily identifiable symbolism of a wood boardwalk, slicing across a pedestrian entryway and car port, to carry the theme of ocean getaway through to the house’s western facade. The transecting walk, with black and gray horizontal banding that parallels the street-front, unifies the central atrium and flanking architectural volumes without demanding all of the attention. New beach grasses and tree plantings add to the enlivening effect, transforming a house that seemed anchored into one that seems buoyed.