Folly Pier Residence

A block back from the water, this house was built around one thing: the pier, sitting dead center in the view from the rooftop deck. Everything stacks toward it. The pool and deck at the bottom, bedrooms and covered porches in the middle, and at the top an open deck where the sun drops behind the pier most evenings of the year.

The main level was made for the way a beach house actually gets used. Glass on three sides, sliders that open the living room straight onto the pool deck, and a fireplace set into shiplap for the handful of nights that call for it. Sandy feet, wet towels, the door standing open. The house was designed to take it.

Upstairs, a bunk room with built-in drawers and shiplap walls gives the kids somewhere that's theirs, and the porches off the bedrooms catch the breeze coming off the water. Structural engineering by Three Rivers Design kept the whole stack sound while leaving the openings wide enough to make the view worth having.

None of that relaxed feeling happens by accident on Folly. The house sits on solid piers with parking tucked underneath, framed for 150 mph winds and capped in standing seam metal. Ipe decking sealed against checking, board and batten detailed for salt air. It's built to shrug off a hard summer and look the same the following spring.