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Street-facing façade of the house.

Project: House on the Intracoastal Waterway,
Rehoboth Beach, DE

Architects: Gardner Architects LLC
Kitchen Designer: Jennifer Gilmer Kitchen & Bath
Landscape Architects: Jordan Honeyman Landscape Architecture LLC
Structural Engineers: 1200 Architectural Engineers
Geotechnical Engineers: John D. Hynes & Associates, Inc.
Contractor: Beachwood, Inc.

are protected wetlands. The area was originally developed as a
compound of summer houses, “almost shacks,” according to
Gardner, lacking heat, air conditioning, and insulation, yet with a
certain mid-century modern panache. The remaining original
houses usually feature dark brown wood siding and low-pitch
gable roofs, and are themselves little compounds with separate
carports and sheds, sometimes connected by screened porches.
For better and for worse, they are slowly but surely being
replaced by modern four-season houses, a mix of beach
McMansions and more thoughtful architecture.
Gardner’s clients lived in one of these old houses for several
years, and considered a renovation project. But to bring the house
to modern standards required replacement of pretty much
everything, and maintaining the house verged on impossible.
(They added air conditioning, but the house was so leaky that it
was wildly inefficient and only marginally effective. “They were
cooling the whole neighborhood,” joked Gardner.)
Ultimately the owners decided to demolish and build new.
But they came to Gardner wanting to maintain much about the
old house that they liked, notably the strong connection to the
outdoors. “The owners wanted a beach house,” noted Gardner,
“not a suburban house at the beach.”
All photos by John Cole Photography © 2016 JOHN COLE
The pre-existing house had wings separated by a screened
porch, which also served as the entrance. “It was really magic,”
said Gardner, noting the transitional character of the porch. “You
Honeyman Landscape Architecture, had “two strokes of genius,”
entered inside the outside.” It also functioned effectively as a beach
according to Gardner: terracing the grade up to the house, and
version of a mud room (a sand room?) keeping the worst of beach
creating the “island deck.” Contractor Beachwood, Inc., and
messiness outside of fully enclosed areas. The new house’s plan is
especially superintendent Alan Wierengo, are credited for, well,
based on this porch, but there is now a proper front door, with a
everything. “Alan is such a talented, creative craftsman,” said
secondary entrance for the sand room functions. The front
Gardner. “It was definitely a partnership. Because of him, we
entrance is between the two-story main house and the one-story
were able to pack in a lot for the budget, especially touchable
“bunkhouse” guest wing. It’s at the center of an axis connecting
details and careful connections.”
the street and the dock, glassed in to maintain visual connections.
The site is near the northern tip of Rehoboth Beach, just
The secondary entrance is at the sand room, known as the Hub,
south of Cape Henlopen State Park, on the eastern side of the
actually a group of spaces including outdoor showers, changing area,
Lewes-Rehoboth Canal, which is part of the Eastern Intracoastal
laundry, a powder room, storage, and even phone-charger stations.
Waterway. The beach is a five-minute walk, and across the canal
NOT ROUGHING IT 23