Tides Residence

Oceanfront on Folly Beach, this house was built to climb toward the water. Three stories, each giving back more of the Atlantic than the one below, and at the top a deck that opens both ways: ocean in front, marsh behind. The pool sits out front, close enough that the surf runs under every conversation.

Downstairs, a sixteen-foot slider folds away and the living room simply becomes the deck. Sandy feet, wet towels, the door standing open from morning until someone finally remembers to close it. An elevator runs the full height, so the view at the top belongs to everyone, not just whoever is willing to climb for it.

Working from a design by Broderick Design Group, the house takes nearly every inch Folly allows and never feels like it is reaching. Structural engineering by Cory Munson of Residential Structures kept the ocean wall open to glass. Outside, every light is shielded for the loggerheads that nest below the dune, the kind of detail no guest will ever notice and the island depends on.

It stands more than twenty feet up on tabby-stuccoed piers, framed for 150 mph wind, Ipe underfoot and standing seam overhead. Salt gets on everything and a different family arrives most weeks of the season, but the house looks the same each fall as it did the spring before.