Waterfront
The house that faces the sea
Salt, wind and light do things to a building that no inland specification survives.
Your result
The Harbour House
The house is the base. The point is what happens on the water.
You want a house that faces the sea and functions as the shore end of a life that is mostly outdoors and often afloat. It needs to take wet people, sandy feet, twelve for lunch and nobody at all for four months.
What works about it
Nothing else gives you as many good days a year. A well-planned coastal house with a boat, however small, generates more use per square metre than any other kind of home, and it is the easiest place in the world to have people to stay.
What to watch
Salt, wind and the specification. Marine-grade everything outside, mineral paint, and a shaded courtyard on the leeward side that will end up being the most used space. Then the running costs, which on a coastal house with a pool and a boat are the highest per square metre of anything in this list.
The rooms it needs
- An outdoor shower and somewhere for wet things that is not the hall
- A kitchen that opens to the shaded side, not the view
- One long table that seats twelve without ceremony
- Bedrooms on the quiet side, away from the light and the water
Read next
Waterfront
Waterfront
What a boat is actually for
Six weeks of use a year, ten per cent of the value in costs, and a reason that has nothing to do with money.
Grounds
The pool you look at
You swim in it for six weeks and look at it for fifty-two. Design it for the looking.
The Saturday letter
One letter a week, on a Saturday.
One letter a week: the new long read, one room worth studying, one number worth knowing. No advertising, no tracking, one click to leave.