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St. Simons Island- There will
be no "keep off the grass" signs at a new beachfront development here, coastal
Georgia's first foray into the neo-traditional style pioneered at the Florida panhandle
community, Seaside. "One of the great things
we're doing is leaving the ground as it is," said Larry Evans, the Brunswick
architect who designed the Coast Cottages project being built on St. Simons adjacent to
the picturesque Coast Guard Station. "We're not allowing any grass."
Instead, Evans and Atlanta developer Denval Hamby, who is
building the $25 million community, are carefully preserving sea myrtle, sour sorrel,
bandana daisies and other plants native to the Southern shore. Such foliage is not only
easy to maintain but is better for the environment than lavishly landscaped lawns, Evans
said.
Like Seaside, Coast Cottages recaptures the leisurely charm
of an old southern town, with sidewalks to encourage pedestrian traffic and breezy front
porches for neighborly visits. Lots are narrow, but careful placement of porches,
plantings, windows and interior spaces promotes privacy. The only street is paved with red
brick, divided by a wide median being replanted with natural foliage.
A growing nationwide trend
This neo-traditional residential style is part of a growing
nationwide trend.
At the Coast Cottages development, as many as 72
ocean view cottages will be built on pilings to allow breezes to blow
freely underneath, curtailing erosion by allowing sand to shift among offshore bars,
beaches and dune fields.
Hamby said building all structures on 50-foot pilings sunk
deep into the sandy soil represents a major investment. "We haven't had a hurricane
here in a long time, but you never know," he said.
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"If we do have a hurricane, most of the
surge will go under the houses."Hamby recently
moved to St. Simons from Atlanta, where he worked for 16 years on major commercial
construction projects. He teamed with Evans on Coast Cottages because they shared a vision
of an old-fashioned island community of well-built single-family homes, he said.
"We really feel this fits in with what St. Simons is
all about, the wonderful trees and the beach and ocean," he said.
Buckhead real estate agent Marilyn Davidson hopes to buy
one of the cottages.
"I've been waiting for them to be built," she
said. "My family has been going to St. Simons for years and my ultimate goal is to
live there."
In the trio of tall, tin-roofed houses already completed,
Hamby pointed out Caribbean pine flooring "with a lot of heart wood," elegant
moldings, beaded board wainscoting and views of sea and sand.
"We will try to protect the views from all the
houses," he said.
Evans said his development is done in the same spirit as
Seaside, which broke architectural ground for coastal developments when it was started in
1983.
"Seaside has been a real laboratory of this kind of
planning," said Evans. "It's also been very successful financially."
Evans, who earned an architecture degree from Georgia Tech,
has long been interested in history and fine old buildings. He helped rehabilitate
sections of Virginia-Highlands during the early 1970's before abandoning Atlanta for the
Coast
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