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“Situated in East Beach's prestigious Beachtown neighborhood, this 5,200-square-foot house priced just a hair under $4 million is Galveston's most expensive home listing now. Designed by Milosav Cekic and built by Gulf Coast Custom Homes, the Victorian-inspired, waterfront residence has four levels, seven bedrooms and a top-floor wraparound balcony that offers serene beach vistas. Intriguing architectural details create reading nooks and small sitting rooms in the home.”
— Go inside the 5 most expensive homes for sale in Galveston now | Read the Full Article Featuring Gulf Coast Custom Homes
DUNE WALKOVER HOUSE AT BEACHTOWN, GALVESTON
A short narrative by Milosav Cekic, Architect
August 10, 2010
The house occupies one of the four most prominent lots in Beachtown. It terminates the passage between the town center and the ocean and stands next to the gazebo at the start of the dune walkover. It was designed for Myra, an interior designer, and Michael Byrd, an attorney, who encouraged me to explore the richness of both Gothic and Victorian approaches to home design appropriate for Galveston and the hurricane prone areas.
The house is strongly inspired by tradition in general, and by a wealth of Galveston’s architectural heritage, in particular. It uses both Victorian and Gothic elements to create a house as stately as some of the great historic houses still standing on Galveston’s Broadway.
More than 200 blocks of well preserved historic houses in Galveston offer great variety of designs and materials to contemporary architects. How we use tradition in our designs without degrading it, and how we make a meaningful contribution to it, are tantalizing conundrums for many of us. Products and materials used in the 19th century are not readily available today, and the craft of home building that created historic Galveston is all but lost in today’s construction industry.
The approach I have taken in designing the house can be called “imitation and innovation.” By imitating, we try to penetrate into the underlying reasons and principals behind the design, and by innovation, we try to contextualize today’s technology to reflect and serve tradition and at the same time take advantage of modern materials and means of production and construction. The point is not to copy, but to emulate. Our attempts should be not to reproduce details to a “tee,” but rather to recreate the formal richness of traditional homes and neighborhoods.
The home's principal massing is Gothic in character and exhibits strong verticality. Additional building components are added to soften the primary massing as well as to further express that verticality. Twin posts on the porches, open rafters and eave detailing, vertically proportioned windows and doors, steep angled roof, ridge pieces, and roof detailing – all contribute to create a slender and elegant home.
The house has a strong traditional distinction between the bottom, the middle, and the top. The heavier bottom, the open and lacey middle, and the soaring top also give hints as to the layout and future use of the house – garage and foyer on the bottom, living areas on the second floor, and bedrooms on the third.
An observation tower is added on the dune walkover side as an important part of the massing and composition. Also, in addition to being a clear indication of how to enter the house, open stairs at the corner facing the passage are a friendly gesture, a “gift to the street” this house makes to one of the most important public spaces in Beachtown.
BEACH PASSAGE RESIDENCE AT BEACHSIDE VILLAGE
Architect: Civic Design Associates
This 3700 square foot beach house is located in the gulf-front community of Beachside Village. The site faces the Gulf of Mexico to the south as well as a pedestrian greenway on the east. The house is organized to take advantage of both, with generous porches on the front for the main living areas and the master suite. The main stair leads from the front and runs along the greenway side to a main entrance into the tower element that separates the front wing from the more private rear wing. The tower also projects above the roof to offer panoramic views in all directions.
The home expresses the casual, beachside character of the community in a vernacular style that is finished with cementitious siding and a standing seam metal roof. Generous porches and exterior decks encourage indoor/outdoor living.
BEACHTOWN SEASIDE RESIDENCE
Architect Michael Imber
This Beachfront home in Beachtown was inspired by architect Michael Imber’s childhood memories of Galveston’s rich architectural past.
A common trait of all coastal houses in the 19th Century was the simple wood construction which was often colorfully articulated, each element taking on a different shade or hue. The interiors of these houses, whether elaborate or simple, were just as expressive of the building’s nature: wood sheathing meant to give the building lateral strength was expressed at times simply as painted one-by boards, but more often it was elaborated as v-groove or bead board with its many variations; wood floors were clean and simple-sometimes natural, sometimes painted. Coastal buildings were a product of their environment and were all reflective of the climate, staying cool with tall triple-hung windows, high ceilings, cross ventilation and sleeping porches, all designed to take advantage of cooling breezes.
This house has become more than an inspiration—it has become the model of a home at Beachtown—designed for our modern lifestyles, filled with light, fresh sea breezes and charm. In the end it is simple things celebrated: a simple life, a simple home, the sea.
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