21. Case Study: Beach House “View/360”
Main-floor and Tower plan of “View/360” beach house
The Most Beautiful House in the World (is the one you build yourself).
Highlights and Peculiarities
Why This Case?
It documents for a simple, understandable structure how very many decisions must be specified and the numerous considerations affecting them.
Bold Decision
Place the house as close to the ocean as possible, while still on the warranty-deeded lot. It is about 40′ forward of all the neighbors’ houses, at somewhat greater risk of wash-away.
Budgeted Resource
For this house design, the budgeted resource turned out to be inches of oceanfront, hence of view and breeze.
Serendipity of the Spiral Staircase
This wooden staircase, included because of floor-space cramping, turned out to be a piece of spatial art and a visual delight.
In-Construction Changes
Changes in the design made during the construction process substantially improved the visual delight, the feel of the house, and its commodity. Not all of the opportunities created by in-construction changes were exploited, which was a mistake.
Placement of Pilings
Both the amateur and the professional architect failed to give careful thought to the placement of the pilings under the centers of weight, and their distribution so that the load on each was about the same. The pilings settled unevenly into the sand, and the house sagged where pilings should have been and weren’t.
Introduction and Context
Location:
321 Caswell Beach Road, Caswell Beach, NC; Latitude 33°53.6′ N, Longitude 78°2.1′ W. The site is on an east-west island with one central road. One row of lots lies between the Atlantic Ocean and the road, a second row between the ocean and the Cape Fear River and its marshlands. The house is on the oceanfront and faces 15° west of south!
Owners:
Frederick and Nancy Brooks family
Designers:
Frederick and Nancy Brooks, architecture; Arthur Cogswell, FAIA, structural engineering and roofline for Tower
Dates:
1972, shell closed in and occupied
1997, construction completed
Local Family as of August 1972:
Parents: Frederick and Nancy
Children: Kenneth, 14; Roger, 10; Barbara, 7
Grandmother: Octavia, 71
Close child friend: Chandler, 10
Objectives
Primary Goal
Our primary goal was to build a comfortable, informal vacation home for family and friends that would capitalize on the natural riches of an oceanfront setting. The house was not intended as a rental.
Other Objectives
• Capitalize on the view.
• Create a casual, unpretentious, restful interior.
• Capitalize on the sea breeze for day and night.
• Sleep 16 on beds and feed 22 at one seating.
• Provide a Grandmother/Guest Room, a Master Bedroom, a Boys’ Dorm, and a Girls’ Dorm—4 bedrooms.
• Provide plenty of showers and toilets.
• Build the house to withstand hurricanes with winds of at least 100 mph. Hurricanes threaten about two times a year and hit about once a decade.
• Design the Kitchen to be workable for one but also for 4 to 6 workers.
• Isolate the noise from our boys and their friends.
• Keep maintenance requirements low.
• Make the house a do-it-together project for family training and bonding.
Opportunities
Building Site
The lot has 75′ of ocean frontage. To the southeast there is a fine view of Bald Head Island (Cape Fear) and ship traffic in and out of the Cape Fear River. Front is defined as the ocean side, not the road side, of the house. The soil is coarse beach sand; the vegetation is low scrub, sea oats, and smilax vines.
Dunes
The house can readily be as close as 65′ to the high-water mark because it is protected by a row of dunes.
Views
Due to the narrowness of the island, there is not only a 180° view of the beach from the front of the house, there is a 135° view of the Cape Fear River and its marshes from the back.
Breeze
The house site naturally faces 15° west of south. The prevailing sea breeze is south to southwest and blows most of the time in warm weather.
Constraints
Budget
There was not enough money to build a finished four-bedroom house at one time.
Time
The family’s available time for construction during any one summer was limited.
Code and Deed Requirements
• The house must be on 16′ pilings, 8′ of which must be in the ground.
• The setback requirement from each lot side was 10′.
• The house must be a single-family residence.
• Electric and septic tank codes must be met.
Foredune
The foredune could be disturbed only minimally, for example, by a boardwalk over it.
Services
The site was serviced with only electricity and water, not gas or sewer.
Deed
Some 65′ of the ocean-side part of the lot had accreted since the lot was platted in 1938. We have a quitclaim deed, not a warranty deed, to this land.
Appearance
External appearances were not constrained, nor did we consider them important.
Design Decisions
Build the house over a relaxed period of time
• Have a dried-in campable shell put up at once, with one bathroom plumbed, the septic tank installed, and temporary electricity provided to the house.
• Invest all initially available cash in maximizing square footage and windows.
• The family would do all interior work, including walls, doors, cabinets, wiring, and most of the plumbing.
Exploit the 75′ lot width
Most beach lots are 50′. Most oceanfront houses are long and narrow. In order to use most of the 55′ allowable width, we turned the house sideways, so that it is wider than it is deep. Therefore, a custom floor plan was needed, not a book exemplar.
Exploit the views
• Set the house as far forward on the lot as feasible, but stay on the warranty-deed land.
• Build a view-maximizing Tower room on the front of the second floor, with glass on four sides.
Corollary: The roof pitch is limited. The ridge can be no higher than the windowsill level of the Tower.
• Put numerous and large windows in all the elevations.
Corollary: The structure had to be strengthened against skew.
Exploit the breeze
• Give every bedroom some ocean frontage.
• Plan to keep the house open to the breeze—install no central air conditioning.
Corollary: Expect to have moisture and salt spray everywhere.
• Put a 6′ sliding-door pair in the front of the Living Room.
• Provide an ample front deck, with protection from the sun.
• Use casement windows, which maximize the opening area and can be directed to scoop in the breeze.
Corollary: Install the windows to open facing southwest or northeast.
Build to resist moisture
The house needed to resist both normal breeze-borne moisture and hurricane leaks. Use wooden paneling to minimize drywall. Use no carpets, just separate rugs, many of them small.
Optimize for spring, summer, and fall use
Provide heat for occasional winter use. Use electric baseboard heat instead of central heating; it has a higher operating cost per day used, but a substantially lower capital cost.
Localize/minimize noise
• Provide each of the Girls’ Dorm, Boys’ Dorm, and Master Bedroom with a private external door so early risers can slip out to the beach without disturbing sleepers.
• Divide the house into a bedroom zone and a public-room zone; partition off the bedrooms, baths, and Hall serving them from the public areas.
Isolate the boys’ noise
Put the Boys’ Dorm at the far end of the bedroom zone.
Design a casual, unpretentious, restful interior
Use paneling, not paint or wallpaper, for all walls. Use dark paneling and floor-boards for the Living Room and Tower where glare is the greatest; for the Kitchen and Dining Room public rooms; and for the Boys’ Dorm. In all cases, provide a dark, quiet, cool feeling. Use light paneling for the other bedrooms for cheer. Use arctic white paneling for the Halls, which get no daylight.
Sleep 16
Four can sleep in the Boys’ Dorm, 4 in the Girls’ Dorm, 2 in the Master Bedroom, 2 in the Guest Bedroom, 2 in the Living Room, and 2 in the Tower. Provide two sofas, suitable for sleeping, in the Living Room. Provide convertible/storable beds for two in the Tower. Provide two fold-up bunks and two permanent single beds each in the Girls’ Dorm and Boys’ Dorm.
Feed 22
Fill the middle of the house with three tables—two for 8 each, one for 6.
Don’t install ceilings
For economy and visual effect, use no ceilings except in the bathrooms and the Living Room. The rafters are doubled 2 × 12s on 4′ centers, designed for a load of up to 1′ of snow. The roof consists of tongue-in-groove 2 × 6s with an insulating pad on top, then built-up tar-cloth roofing, then white stones to reflect heat. The visible part of the interior is just varnished. Corollary: The open ceiling complicates hiding the wiring.
Optimize the footprint of the Tower stairs
To put the Tower forward, the stairs have to be in the front of the house, where space is precious. The Living Room is to be the only front public room, so the stairs go there.
If the Living Room is to maximize its view on the south and be open to the other public spaces on the north, the stairs must be along the east or west wall. The east wall has windows for view, light, and breeze, so the stairs go on the west wall.
It seemed a better use of precious space to give the stairs a square footprint rather than a rectangular one, which would narrow the whole Living Room. So we used spiral stairs. Salt spray argues strongly against steel, so the stairs are wooden. Given the stairs as a necessity, feature them as a bit of sculpture.
Design the eaves for light control
The eaves must be 4′ to admit midday sun into the front rooms from September to March, but not from March to September.
Rationing the Frontage
The opportunities and constraints give a maximum house width of 55′, or 660″. Since ocean breeze and ocean view are to be maximized, frontage becomes a critical design budget.
Living Room
The Living Room has the highest claim on ocean view and breeze. Clearly it gets a substantial chunk. An arbitrary decision was to make it 16′ wide. The Living Room can have side windows as well as front window and doors, so we put the Living Room in the southeast corner of the house to exploit the southeast view, the mouth of the Cape Fear River and shipping.
West Deck
Run a narrow deck along the west end of the house, to provide direct beach access and major breeze to the Master Bedroom and to provide a direct path from the beach to the interior showers without having wet people track through the house.
Bedrooms versus Dining Room–Kitchen
Given the decision not to air-condition, breeze for sleeping becomes very important. Direct bedroom access to the beach is secondary, but more than just a nicety, given the personalities of our children. So the bedrooms go forward and divide the remaining frontage.
Girls’ Dorm, Boys’ Dorm
These are the highest priority among the bedrooms, since they will be used on every beach trip (as opposed to the Guest Room) and may need to serve as reading retreats for the children.
Guest Room
The Master Bedroom is needed primarily for sleeping. The Guest Room may well be used as a reading retreat, so it wins out for a position on the front.
Configuring the Boys’ Dorm
Site the Boys’ Dorm on the house’s southwest corner for isolation. One bed goes under the front windows, and one bunk on the west wall overlapping it. Another bunk can go high (for adventure) if it goes on the north wall near the ridgepole. The closet therefore goes on the east wall. The minimum room width equals door width plus bed length.
Configuring the Girls’ Dorm
The lower beds feel much less confining if not completely under an upper bunk. Put a bed under the window, a bunk on the east wall. Another bunk can also go on the east wall and share a ladder. Put another bed on the north wall and a closet on the west wall. The minimum room width equals door width plus bed length.
Configuring the Guest Room
This room needs only a double bed. It needs no door to the beach. The minimum width equals bed width plus passage around the bed. There is plenty of room depth, so put the closet on the north wall.
Sizing the House
Square Feet
The available money led to an upper bound of 2,000 ft2, given the abundance of windows.
Roof Structure and Room Depth
The deflection of a uniformly loaded beam supported at both ends is very sensitive to length:
d = k l4 / w2 t
where w is the width of the timber, t the thickness, and l the effective length. The effective length is shortened by any cantilever beyond the point of support. I chose 4′ eaves, based on summer and winter sun angles. The whole calculation yielded a maximum horizontal span length of 16′ for twinned 2 × 12s on 4′ centers. This determined the depth of the front bedrooms, the Living Room, and the Tower.
Sizing the Dining Room–Kitchen
It appeared that the Master Bedroom would benefit from a door directly into the Kitchen, as well as the one into the Hall. The critical dimension then became the Kitchen west wall, whose length had to be at least one work surface width plus a stove width plus a refrigerator width and a bedroom door width, plus a work surface between stove and refrigerator.
I chose to make the Kitchen depth also the depth of most of the back of the house, for simplicity. This gave a good working size to the Kitchen. It also required the addition of flitch plates to the roof beams to support the 17′ span.
False Starts
Breaking-Wave Roof
Initially I planned to make the roofline suggest breaking waves, as shown in Figure 21-1.
Figure 21-1 Brooks’s proposed roofline
Cogswell strongly advised against it: “My architecture prof told us, ‘If you can design a house to keep the rain out, boys, you will have done well.’ Maybe you can find a contractor in Brunswick County who will make that trough so it won’t leak, but I doubt it.” I followed his back-to-fundamentals advice.
Dull Symmetric Tower Roofline by Brooks
I did a perfectly dull roofline for the Tower. Cogswell substantially improved it as shown in Figure 21-2.
Figure 21-2 East elevations by Brooks and by Cogswell
Design Changes after Design, before Construction
Designed two exterior showers on the ground floor
To keep sand, salt, and wet bathing suits out of the house, we designed two ground-floor exterior showers; changing to and from bathing suits would occur there. We provided each with ample dressing space for multiple occupancy, so parents can help children.
Replaced the planned shower off the Hall with closets
That space became a big linen closet and a full-height miscellany closet, 12” wide, with a shelf to store a rollaway bed below, window screens above.
Moved the eating area from the Dining Room to the Kitchen
Mock-up studies showed this to make serving much more convenient. This made a sitting, working, game, puzzle area in the Dining Room.
Doubled the size of the ground-floor enclosed Storage Room from 8′ × 16′ to 16′ × 16′.
Swung the Master Bedroom screen door the other way
When the bathroom window was open, the screen door wouldn’t open—a design goof discovered during construction.
Design Changes after Shell Construction and Initial Occupancy
Decided against constructing a partition between the bedroom zone and the public rooms.
Installed let-in diagonal braces
Braces on the east and west walls of the Living Room, the north wall of the Guest Room, and the west wall of the Boys’ Dorm improved parallelogram skew resistance to wind. The work was done after the shell was up, before any paneling.
Installed hurricane clips
The shell contractor did not install the specified vertical tie rods, so we substituted these to hold the roof down in high winds.
Added water faucets on the deck for rinsing
Provided an awning for the big front deck
An awning provided shade for all or part of the deck. We used a trailer awning, designed for 70 mph wind speeds on the highway. Much later, we replaced the awning with a fixed roof, extending halfway out to enable sitters to choose sun or shade.
Replaced and enlarged the Tower windows
Hurricane Diana (1984) blew out all the original Tower windows, glass and frames. We replaced the front multiple small panes with two single large panes. These afford a much better view in both size and presence—and stronger wind resistance.
Added a door in the West Hall
This allows the north half-bath to be either grouped with the Master Bedroom into a suite, or made part of public toilet facilities.
Made removable plywood shutters
We use these for boarding up the two windward sides of the house for winter and for hurricanes.
Ripped out the extra sound insulation (and wall thickness) between the Living Room and the Guest Room, after framing, before paneling. Grandmother Brooks died in 1973, so the room became the Guest Room instead of Grandmother’s Room and no longer needed the special sound isolation.
Replaced the east railing of the front deck with a bench, especially for facing breeze and sunsets.
Installed a foundation sill (1997) to stabilize settling pilings.
Installed supports under the west wall of the Boys’ Dorm (2000)
The original plan had the pilings under the edge of the west deck rather than under the west load-bearing wall, an error in the structural design.
Assessment (after 37 Years)
Delight
Tower
The Tower has turned out to be a wonderful study, with horizon views to rest the eyes, the ability to watch action on the beach, a fine southeast view for watching shipping in the ocean channel, a fine northeast view for watching shipping traverse the river, and plenty of light. Much of The Mythical Man-Month was written there.
Open Plan
Omitting the partition originally planned between the Kitchen and the Hall substantially adds delight. It increases the visual space, enhancing one’s perception of roominess upon entering the house. It brings daylight and sea breeze to the main passageway. The cook can see the ocean through the Girls’ Dorm and its open exterior door—a big morale booster. The colored bedroom doors became major decorative elements, and the white Hall wall is ideal for hanging maps.
Spiral Staircase
The oak spiral staircase is a visual delight as a sculpture. In daylight, it is silhouetted against the glass front wall.
Design Rationale
My consulting architect, Arthur Cogswell, once derisively called “View/360” “the damned-logical beach house” because of the detailed rationale described here and shared with him. I’ve never been sure with what he was contrasting it. The rationality is a private delight for me when I’m there.
Exterior
The house is interesting but not beautiful from the exterior—form follows function (Figure 21-3). Cogswell’s asymmetrical roofline for the Tower is just right; it seems to leap forward.
Figure 21-3 “View/360” house from the southeast
Usefulness
Objectives Met
The house is very livable.
Design Changes
The changes made after the original design proved to be big improvements.
Wall Omission
The omission of the wall originally planned between the Hall and the Kitchen makes the biggest Kitchen work surface available from the Hall. Meals are served buffet-style from that work surface, a convenience not contemplated in the design. Multiple cooks can more readily work.
Toilet in Tower
Putting a toilet in the Tower makes it a separate bedroom suite, an unexpected benefit.
Dining Room
Providing a separate sitting/conversation/work/game area in the original Dining Room has added to livability. Essentially what was designed as an adjunct to the Kitchen has instead become a second living room. It sometimes serves as a second study, although it is not isolatable.
Master Bedroom
The Master Bedroom provides yet an unexpected third study, set apart, and with views over the marsh.
Accommodates Groups
Although not explicitly designed for groups, the house accommodates weekend groups of up to 25, but not beyond, based our on success and failure experiences. Sleeping (including rollaways and floor), feeding, bathroom, and meeting spaces are packed but workable at 25.
Family Size
The house now (barely) accommodates a simultaneous family gathering: our three children, two children-in-law, nine grandchildren, and us—quite a change from the family designed for.
Kitchen
The Kitchen readily accommodates a crew of cooks, but a single cook finds the sink somewhat far from the work surfaces-stove-refrigerator.
Deck
The deck along the west end of the house was a major mistake. It used 42″ of the critical budget commodity, namely, the buildable ocean frontage. The deck is rarely used. The space would have been much better used elsewhere.
The late decision to put the major beach-serving showers on the ground floor obviated the need to provide an outside path from the beach to the master bath. Substituting the linen closet for the second interior shower further reduced the need. I should have rethought the deck decision when the shower decision was made.
Master Bedroom
The exterior door to the Master Bedroom is often opened for breeze but rarely for passage. The Master Bedroom occupants have quiet access to the beach through the Kitchen and back door. The Master Bedroom usually gets plenty of breeze via its west windows and its two interior doors. Its meager ocean view doesn’t matter much because it was intended as a sleeping space, not a living space. So that door could be eliminated if the deck was.
Main Bathroom
The outside door to the main bathroom stays open most of the time, ventilating the whole house. If the deck were not there, one would want a Dutch door with the bottom half nailed shut.
Privacy
The openness of the Living Room, Dining Room, and Kitchen area is a disadvantage with respect to privacy of conversations and makes it hard to find a retreat from the hubbub of a full house. The Tower is visually and socially isolated but cannot be closed off acoustically.
Firmness
The house has resisted direct attack by three hurricanes and miscellaneous other storms
• 1978 storm. We lost the built-up (tar-impregnated cloth monocoque) roof off the Tower. Wind and the Bernoulli effect lifted it off and deposited it in the backyard.
• 1984 Hurricane Diana. The eye came within 10 miles, and peak local winds were 135 mph, from the south. The wind lifted all the built-up roof except that of the Tower and deposited it as a unit in the backyard. Sixteen inches of rain leaked into the house. The storm blew out all the window glass and window frames in the Tower and blew mattresses, rugs, and lamps out into the marsh.
• 1996 Hurricanes Bertha and Fran. The eyes came within 10 miles. There was no damage except to one shutter and one windowpane.
Radically different loads on the pilings produce different settling rates in the sandy soil
The design did not take variable settling into account. This is a strange oversight, since every house on pilings in sandy soil must be subject to this problem. The pilings under the two south corners of the Tower bore extra-heavy loads, hence settled more. The pilings under non-load-bearing walls settled less. This was particularly bad under the center of the big double Living Room door. The door track bowed upward in the middle, so that the sliding doors did not close properly. We installed in 1997 a 4″ × 6″ × 16′ subterranean sill bolted to all three of the pilings under the Tower south wall, so future settling will be less, and uniform.
The westernmost row of pilings was put under the edge of the deck, rather than under the west wall holding the ridgepole and the roof weight
The floor joists bent under the unsupported weight. Pilings had to be added under that wall in the 28th year. Clearly this was just a general oversight. Neither Cogswell nor I carefully compared the main-floor plan and the piling plan.
Casement windows were a mistake
The breeze-scooping action worked well as planned. Although the windows were of wood, the crank-out mechanisms were of steel and had to be replaced every five years on the ocean-spray sides of the house, and every 15 years on the lee sides. So at the 35th year, as the old window frames were deteriorating, we replaced most of the casement windows with double-hung.
What factors led to the casement window mistake? Inadequate weighting of maintenance in a long-life project, combined with inadequate attention to all the materials of construction.
If I “Threw One Away”?
Suppose I were designing this house for this site and the 1972 family situation; what would I design differently, based on what I know now? The “Assessment” section above details various lesser miscalculations and mistakes; here are the big ones:
The first big lesson I would apply from the essays (Chapter 10) is to pay even closer attention to the budgeted resource, in this case, inches of ocean frontage. Now understanding that criticality, I would study the details of the side-line setback requirements (as to whether eaves count), and I would design to exploit every available inch, even breaking the square-foot budget.
The second big lesson (Chapter 11) would be to notice that the early addition of the under-house showers to the plan had removed the desideratum/constraint of outside access to the main bathroom. Hence I would remove the west deck and reallocate its 42″ of frontage.
General Lessons Learned
The lessons learned here in the small apply generally to every substantial design project, whether hardware, software, or buildings:
1. Check your professional architect’s work very carefully, and ask for rationale. Even honest, competent, and conscientious architects make mistakes.
2. Inspect often and thoroughly during construction. Even honest, competent, and conscientious builders make mistakes.
3. Think hard about all aspects of maintenance. One maintains any successful design a long time.