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By Kymberly Taylor | Photography by Stacy Zarin Goldberg
Rising from the dunes of Bethany Beach, this shingle-style home beckons sunlight and the great rhythms of the ocean into spaces both intimate and grand. Its architecture, conceived by Christopher L. Pattey of Becker Morgan Group, embraces large open spaces for the main living areas as well as smaller, more private spaces. Its sloping rooflines, eyebrow windows, and dormers create different interior ceiling shapes and heights. “Usually, these beautiful elements on the outside disappear into an attic,” says Pattey.
Various ceiling heights and a light-flooded, highly reflective interior posed challenges to interior designer Katherine Crosby of Crosby Jenkins Associates. She had to manage layers of light as well as conceive a design that responded to the home’s expansive scale and the family’s need for a homey, cozy ambiance.
“They wanted a place just as beautiful and useable for Thanksgiving dinner as it would be on a summer day,” she says. Her clients live in Annapolis and plan to visit their vacation home not just during the summer but year-round, often entertaining family and friends during holidays.
“The project is a delicate balance on many levels,” she notes. “I wanted to balance the vaulted volume while maintaining the intimacy of human scale. Likewise, I wanted to create a dual focus: one towards the dunes and ocean beyond, and the other inward to the rooms the family inhabits.”
The home has an upside-down floor plan, with main living areas on the second floor to take advantage of breezes and views. One enters from the ground level, stepping into an intimate foyer with floors of Portuguese marble. Straight ahead is the family room with a giant arched window. “You know where you are… you have the dunes and the ocean right out there,” observes Crosby. Its bar and casual furniture groupings encourage visitors to lounge and play games.
Three bedrooms for the homeowners’ adult children adjoin the family room, so the mood here is playful. Color is foregrounded. There are lots of corals and reds, including a vibrant blue and beachy teal. “It is a nautical palette that does not quite read nautical. It is more playful, yet has some blue and white,” says Crosby.
A sweeping stair echoes the curves and arches on the home’s front-facing façade as it ascends to the living room, the hub of the home. With 15-foot ceilings, it is a room for dreaming and conversation. There is a spatial discipline throughout, a clarity in calm furniture groupings and appointments that echo the architecture’s vaulted ceiling and recessed forms. What makes this area especially distinct are the fine furnishings and finishes expected in a main residence. Nothing is trendy or nautical-themed. “My clients were firm about wanting to be respectful of the ocean, but they did not want a ‘beachy’ home. They wanted to be here and not feel the pressure to be ‘beachy.’” For this reason, she explains, some of the chairs and sofas face in as opposed to out.
Crosby points out that the original paintings on the walls by artist Lynne Pelle of Baltimore are attractive yet not overly nautical. She feels strongly that second homes should have original art instead of “posters and things.”
The overall decor coheres from afar, but close inspection reveals varied patterns and textures. “We started with things we loved, such as the striped Schumacher upholstery on the chairs. It was cream and taupe, so we could pull in any color,” she explains. And because the window treatments had such dramatic patterns, the sofa is all about texture, she points out. “Natural materials and textures soften the environment. I think leather on the coffee table warms it up in a non-beachy way, yet as a natural material, it is forgiving, soft, and cozy.” A decorative finish on their cabinetry is cool as opposed to warm. “It’s a maple with a grey glaze on it that allowed it to feel more wintery as opposed to bright white,” explains Crosby.
She notes that most of the color in the room comes from the blue and white window treatments, which have strong horizontal stripes. “We wanted the room to feel calm and expansive,” she says, noting that they mirror the horizon line on a much smaller scale. She said she was not concerned about having two different stripes in the room. “It feels almost collected, rather than ‘designed,’ like it evolved.”
The living room, which faces east, has very high ceilings, which made lighting the room especially challenging. “Here, we needed to bring the lighting down to a more human scale,” she says. There is one table lamp and some reading lamps. To help manage the sun pouring into the home, she worked with the architect to design built-in recessed shades for light control.
The hardest part of the project had to do with the ceiling, which changes levels all throughout the space. “The ceilings are complex, but beautifully so,” notes Crosby. The expansive living room flows to the more intimate dining room with a custom table and chairs. The space contracts into the kitchen, found at the far end of the home. In the kitchen, she points out that along with a lower ceiling, the sink is centered on the back wall, but the back wall is not centered in the room. “All these angles come into play,” she says. The kitchen is white, with very soft blue and grey hues and accents. These are most noticeable in the blue enamel back plate and the curved herringbone backsplash behind the stove.
The design rhythms in this home are never broken by superfluous furnishings or random appointments. The powder room is warmed by a natural wood custom vanity, with symmetrical mirrors placed on both sides of the sink. “The window becomes the third mirror,” says Crosby. The hallway leading to the primary suite is wallpapered in vibrant greens and blues. In stark contrast, the primary suite is exceptionally calm. Controlling the light in this room was tricky. “We did a double wall layer; behind is a horizontal blackout shade and a light-filtering shade. The scale of the room is modest; all the bedrooms have the same level of finish, so everyone feels equally special,” notes Crosby. Yet, the suite opens to a deck with magnificent dune and ocean views. Here is the best of both worlds.
Many large beach homes have cavernous floor plans. However, in this generous home, there is a fusion of expansiveness and intimacy, says Pattey. One can find the “space” one needs. On the lowest level, you can ground yourself in a good book. In the living room, it is easy to be swept away on the quiet morning air or, from an outdoor deck, lifted by the stars.
INTERIOR DESIGN: Katherine Crosby, Crosby Jenkins Associates, Baltimore, Maryland. ARCHITECT: Principal-in-Charge: W. Ronald Morgan, AIA; Project Manager: Christopher L. Pattey Assoc. AIA, Becker Morgan Group, Inc., Delaware. BUILDER: John McMahon, Dewson Construction Company, Delaware.
Artwork – Lynne Pell
Shades/AV – Electronic Interiors
Drapery – Susan Pilchard
Custom Cabinetry – Lyndon Heath
© Annapolis Home Magazine
Vol. 15, No. 5 2024