Just because you don’t live at the coast, doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a resort lifestyle in your own home. Many times, visitors who stay at a Grand Strand Vacations’ home leave with more than just bronzed skin and sun-kissed hair. They head back with a suitcase full of ideas on how to transform their house into a summer’s dream – year round!
It’s easy. You need to look no further for motivation than one of our beloved beach properties, which showcase the best in coastal décor and design. Holding more than 350 exclusive coastal homes, Grand Strand Vacations serves as the perfect breeding ground for interior and exterior style concepts.
These few examples might help put you in the sand and surf mindset: Sea Breeze on Cherry Grove Beach is a unique channel home with upper deck stairs to Ship’s Watch deck. Ibis is a luxury oceanfront home in the Tilghman Beach section of North Myrtle Beach, with six bedrooms, private pool, sundeck and private walkway to the beach. The Bunkhouse mixes coastal and modern.
Need more inspiration? Well, a short drive over the state line is Coastal Living magazine’s 2009 Idea House. The 7,678-square-foot home is in Seawatch at Sunset Harbor, a waterfront community a little north of Grand Strand Vacations’ stomping grounds. It will be featured in the magazine’s November issue.
Tours of the home are being offered through Nov. 29. Proceeds from the $10 ticket sales benefit the Boys and Girls Home.
Started 12 years ago, Coastal Living Idea Houses aim to celebrate the best in coastal home innovation, décor and construction. The magazine builds these unique homes in communities that showcase environmental consciousness and sensitivity to shoreline preservation.
The Cape-style house sits on a bluff overlooking the tidal waters of Mercer Mill Creek and a nature preserve.
“Last year we looked at Seawatch, and it was love at first sight,” said Nicole Hendrick, Idea Home manager for Coastal Living. “They have a good vision for today and for generations to come, great architecture, a commitment to using sustainable products and to protect the environment.”
We at Grand Strand Vacations absolutely love the intrigue surrounding this gorgeous home. Like our rental properties, the 2009 Idea House epitomizes Carolina charm and elegance.
The three-story home was designed by Sam Guidry, Director of Architecture for Guidry-Coastal Architecture, and was built by Mark Saunders Luxury Homes. Both are businesses of The Coastal Companies, an award-winning development team with a quarter century of experience designing the area’s finest coastal communities. Phillip Sides of Phillip Sides Interior Design in Montgomery, Ala., was the interior designer.
“They selected this site because of the marsh,” said architect Sam Guidry in a Sun-News article about the home. “We tried to use a Southern flavor with big porches and high ceilings. It has a really nice flow to it. And we tried to design the home to capture the views.”
The Sun News recently featured the house. During an interview with the designer, he revealed his thinking when conceptualizing the stunning property.
Certainly, the views are what drove the color palette and inspired the decor, according to designer Phillip Sides.
Shades of gray, splashes of yellow, bursts of lilac and orange and green abound throughout the three-story structure, creating an ambience that is exhilarating, elegant and carefree.
“Fabrics were chosen to make the house less formal,” Sides said.
For example, the master bedroom features a yellow and gray color scheme painted on the walls in vertical stripes that were inspired by the botanically inspired fabric.
“We were inspired by the marsh grass and the trees,” Sides said. “When we first visited the site, it was winter. The color scheme was generated by the fabric. There was no magic. We knew we wanted to use that fabric.”
Another fun fabric in a coffee pot motif in tan and white inspired the design for the dining room. Cleverly, Sides covered the walls in this whimsical fabric and dressed the windows in the same fabric using custom-made drapery.
To create a transition between the dining room and kitchen, Sides lowered the ceiling and chose black cabinetry on either side of the walk-through, flanked on one side by a large walk-in pantry.
“That’s to imply that you’ve walked through a pantry to get to the kitchen,” Sides explained.
The black cabinetry extends along the base of the kitchen countertops, providing a pleasant contrast to the white upper cabinets. Sides achieved a custom feel by installing brackets beneath them and finishing them with a simple molding along the bottom edge.
“It just makes them feel like furniture as opposed to a cabinet box,” he said. “This is something anyone can do in their own kitchen to give it a custom feel.”
The focal point of the space is a cherry kitchen island that feels more like a dining table than an island. Sides chose a set of whimsical stools covered in cowhide to line one side of the table.
The upstairs offers more unexpected design ideas, such as the loft area that features a cupola ceiling and a pair of bunk beds, each featuring a pendant reading lamp hidden behind a shuttered cutout in the wall, and a sleeping porch that exudes warmth and charm.
“It was conceived as a porch that has been enclosed,” said Ron Wiese with Mark Saunders Luxury Homes. “It’s very warm and cozy.”
The sleeping porch features a planked cathedral ceiling in golden wood tones, orange, yellow and green fabrics, a fireplace, a wall of daybeds and a hanging bed.
The home’s exterior is as luxurious as its interior. There is an outdoor dining room featuring cultured stone and elegant archways. It’s accessorized with long flowing curtains, a round table and an orange outdoor rug. The space also is equipped with outdoor kitchen facilities and heated floors to allow for year-round use.
A wooden deck is situated under the trees just off the stone back porch and a pond adjacent to the deck hides an underground cistern, designed to collect rainwater for irrigation purposes. Stone, pervious pavers also were used to prevent runoff from entering the marsh nearby, all intended to be environmentally conscious elements.
Inspiration abounds throughout the house, but the key element the architect said he hoped visitors would walk away with is the homes attention to comfort.
“I want people to feel comfortable outside and inside the home,” Guidry said. “People moving into this area are retiring. This will probably be their last house. Your shelter is real important. It should be comfortable inside and out.”
For more information on the home or about taking a tour, call 1-877-732-9282 or visit www.seawatch-nc.com.
Between your Grand Strand Vacations getaway home and the 2009 Idea House, there are plenty of pointers to create your own casa-de-coast – even if you’re hundreds of miles away.
Stay tan,
Grand Strand Vacations
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