"Beach Homes" Puts You Right Amid the Sea And Sand

By Patrick Butters
Scripps Howard News Service

Beach Homes From the Editors of Fine Homebuilding. The Taunton Press, $24.

Get out your slicker. If ever a book will get you in the mood for salt spray and crashing waves of summer at the ocean, this is it.

Would that we all could afford a beach home, this 144-page paperback can let us dream -- or have a nifty goal toward which to work. The editors of Fine Homebuilding magazine have crisscrossed the country and beyond to find well-designed coastal treasures.

Each of the book's stories is an article from the magazine. Editor in Chief Kevin Ireton opens the book succinctly but effectively. The mysterious draw of the ocean, he points out, leads people to live there, but tricky ingenuity in home design keeps them there. A beach home can't just look pretty and expensive. It must battle wind, sand, pounding rain and, of course, the unforgiving sea.

There are other challenges that the 17 stories cover. For example, two architects designed two golden "towers" on Bald Head Mountain, N.C. The single-family structures were built to provide a public beach access, thus providing snug comfort but also serving "the people." It's amazing that the homes survived a hurricane mentioned in the story, true. But the big deal is that the project survived two architects' massive egos.

Beach Homes has sumptuous pictures, cutaway views, graphics and clever commentary that doesn't just take you to the beach. It gives you serene, pleasant reading material to go with the trip.

(Contact Patrick Butters at buttersp@shns.com)