Behind the Modern Luxury Feature
Some projects stay with you long after the final walkthrough, and our Sunset Beach project is one of them. So we were especially glad to see it featured in Modern Luxury this month, and wanted to share a bit more of the story behind it here.
You can view the full feature through the button below:
The Project Behind the Feature
This one was personal from the start. Our client grew up in this 1905 beach house after his family purchased it back in 1983, and he was moving back in decades later with a family of his own, five people and two dogs, ready to fill the house with a new generation of memories. Our job wasn't to modernize the home into something unrecognizable. It was to honor the bones of a house with real history while making it work for the way this family actually lives now.
We steered away from the predictable navy-and-white coastal look that so many beach homes default to. Instead, the palette borrows from the ocean itself, deep teals, soft seafoams, and muted slates, layered with linen, chalky ceramic tile, and woven jute to keep it from ever feeling flat or matchy. Warm, honeyed hickory floors and natural woven fixtures bridge the cooler tones and keep the whole home feeling grounded rather than cold.
What Made It Feature-Worthy
A lot of it comes down to the kitchen relocation, which ended up being the single biggest move of the project. By extending the home's footprint toward the beach, we were able to shift the kitchen to the front of the house, connected directly to the beach-side deck. It's the first thing you see walking in now, and it completely changed how the family gathers and entertains. That single shift also freed up the old kitchen footprint to become a proper laundry room, and turned a tired breakfast nook into a custom bar.
A Few Details the Feature Didn't Cover
The floors were the real test of this project. Matching new construction to the original 1905 hickory, patched and refinished rather than replaced, took a level of craftsmanship that's hard to overstate, especially where the old structure meets the new addition seamlessly.
Our favorite detail, though, might be the one most people miss entirely: the elevator. Rather than treating it as a purely functional necessity, we wrapped the interior in a playful, unexpected wallpaper with a bold pop of paint, so a five-second ride between floors becomes its own little surprise. It's become a genuine favorite with guests.
None of the bathrooms in this house repeat themselves, either. The level one powder features a bold blue, oversized palm-print wallpaper. Just outside, the beach bathroom takes on a completely different mood, with a custom-laid floor mosaci and moody blue doors that feel almost like stepping into the tide. Each one was designed to have its own point of view rather than defaulting to a single house-wide bathroom formula, which is part of what makes wandering through this home feel like discovering something new around every corner.
And then there are the nooks, our favorite kind of detail to design around. This house is full of them, tucked-away original moments that the 1905 bones gave us to work with rather than build from scratch. On the third floor, a cozy built-in lounging nook sits right next to a classic porthole window overlooking the sea, part of a record lounge dedicated entirely to the clients' love of music. Elsewhere, we leaned into stripes wherever we could sneak them in: a playful blue-and-white striped hexagon tile hand-laid piece by piece into the primary bathroom floor, and a striped upholstered bench anchoring the dining room mix alongside a set of vintage woven chairs. Small, layered moments like these are what make a house this size still feel intimate rather than grand.
Grateful for the Recognition
A huge thank-you to Modern Luxury for telling this story, and to the incredible team who brought it to life alongside us, Burke Structural Engineers and HP Custom Homes. Projects like this one are exactly why we love what we do, and it's an honor to see it recognized.
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