This house uses durable marine construction. Specht had begun plans for the renovation of this home when Hurricane Sandy swept through the area causing major damage and beach erosion. Post Sandy FEMA changed all beachfront regulations requiring a start from scratch redesign. The result is a modern house – the only one of its kind – in the tony Beach Haven community. Many (if not most) houses built to current regulations on the shore are basically traditional styles, elevated on pilings to the required flood level.
Even when the pilings are covered with panels, the proportions often are not pleasing, and they appear awkward or ad-hoc. Specht’s intent with the Beach Haven house was to embrace the fact that the house had to be elevated on what are basically telephone poles driven into the sand, and use these as major design components, to be expressed and highlighted.
Techniques that are often used in boat building were used in the construction of the house. The roof is all fiberglass, and the exterior components are all stainless steel. Windows are of the highest hurricane-rating available. The design team used a combination of eastern white cedar and western red cedar (proven over time to be extremely durable in a beach environment) as the exterior cladding on the house, stained and bleached to create different shades and textures.
