Houzz Tour: Bright Beach Cottage in 780 Square Feet

With “honestly, nothing” salvageable from the old house, Brown says, they could start with a clean slate. But according to the town zoning board and homeowners association, the maximum footprint of the new house could be only 780 square feet — a slight increase from the existing 718-square-foot structure. And strict building standards required that it be protected from flood damage. So Brown designed the house to sit 3 feet above the floodplain on a foundation with flood vents. The elevation is evident by the steps leading to the main entrance, which is now on the side of the house beside a crushed-stone driveway (on the left in the previous photo).

“Storms keep getting worse,” Brown says. “Even though we were required to do it, it made for good sense.… A lot of these older cottages are almost buried in the sand, to where you don’t have any stability, and if you were to get a storm it would just wash away.”

Door paint: Quietude, Sherwin-Williams

This is the view looking toward the back of the house. The structure is shaped like a T, with two bedrooms on either side of the central corridor. Despite the small square footage, Brown was able to carve out two bedrooms and two bathrooms, plus a small loft reached by ladder that can function as a sleeping or hangout space. In the main living area, which has open but well-defined living, dining, cooking and entry zones, a 12-foot ceiling helps to add a sense of lightness and spaciousness.

For the interior design, Brown brought in Michael Ferzoco of Eleven Interiors, with whom he’d worked before. Both describe the process of creating the home as a true collaboration. “This team of interior designers, landscape architects [and] builders was really a joy to work with, and it all stemmed from these clients because they wanted to understand and hear everyone’s ideas,” Brown says.

Early on, the homeowners had shared with Eleven Interiors their inspiration photos — including some they’d found on Houzz — of spaces that had fairly traditional seaside motifs and colors. But the designers encouraged their clients to think less literally. “In one of the images that they sent to us, there was a beautiful sunset of the actual bay that the house sits on … and we took that as the central cue in developing the color scheme and the concept for the interior,” Ferzoco says. The beach and seagrass outside the windows provided yet more inspiration. The floors and ceiling trusses, for example, are sand-colored whitewashed bleached white oak. The result is a coastal look that’s not too on-the-nose.

When the homeowners get back to the cottage, they tend to be on foot or on bike, so having a hardworking mudroom to catch sand and drop bags, shoes and jackets was a must. “Everything has its place,” Brown says. “To feel comfortable in such a small amount of square footage, everything has to feel right and has to be easy and functional.”

Speaking of easy, Eleven Interiors used low-maintenance materials and performance fabrics throughout the house. It also designed nearly all of the furniture to be built in, including this entry bench and cabinetry. “Customization to the inch is really important, because otherwise you just end up wasting space,” Ferzoco says. And with less than 800 square feet to work with, there wasn’t an inch to spare.

The dog bowls even have a designated and plumbed spot just around the corner from the bench. The niche is lined with a solid-surface material to protect it from splashes. And the spoked faucet knob is a little nod to the seaside location.

“It’s this nautical element, you know, without announcing, ‘Hey, I’m a nautical element, don’t I remind you of the steering wheel of a ship?’” Ferzoco says.

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The home’s subtle coastal references also include a custom-designed chandelier, which consists of 12 handblown tinted glass orbs that resemble the oysters for which Wellfleet is famous. It hangs over a small island with a Caesarstone top and a base that’s stained blue so its wood grain shows through.

The kitchen’s look is clean and crisp, and its layout is compact and efficient. There’s an 18-inch dishwasher and, in the corner, a two-burner induction cooktop with a multifunction speed oven below it. A downdraft exhaust eliminated the need for a bulky-looking vent hood. On the far left, a 2-foot-wide Sub-Zero refrigerator is camouflaged behind a matching panel. A slim column for refrigerating wine and nonalcoholic drinks sits next to the main fridge and, behind it, a washer and dryer are tucked into a closet.

“We’ll put on our imaginary chef hat [and figure out] ‘How do we make this work?’” Brown says of his firm’s process when designing such a small kitchen. He also asks a lot of questions about how the clients will really use the space — especially when it’s a vacation home like this one that’s used mainly during the summer. In this case, he learned that the clients like to grill outside, so two burners inside were plenty. Installing them in the corner freed up counter space on either side of the sink.

Chandelier: Ochre

Just to the right of the kitchen is a built-in dining bench with storage underneath. Eleven Interiors paired it with a vintage Saarinen Tulip table and new dining chairs. The fun, contemporary globe light hanging above the table was selected in part because of its resemblance to a buoy.

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A sectional wide enough to serve as an additional sleeping space is built into the opposite corner, with one side attached to the half wall in the entry area. In front of it, a floating stool does double duty as a seat and coffee table.

A television that rises on a motorized lift is hidden in one of the cabinets. The home also features an integrated AV system that controls the lights, music and temperature. There are discreet security cameras too, so the clients can keep an eye on the home even when they’re not there — something that Brown says is a major design point when creating getaway homes for clients.

There’s another dining area on the side porch, which is accessed through sliding doors between the kitchen and dining area.

“Having this small size is a constraint, and we love constraints,” Brown says. They realized that although they could build just 780 square feet of house structure, they could do much more within the setbacks of the property. So the decks and patios became like extra rooms, complete with red cedar pergola “ceilings” left open to the sky.

The decking is made of long-lived sustainable ipe that’s already weathered to gray.

This is the view standing at the outdoor table looking away from the water. The 6-foot sliding doors lead to the primary bedroom. The clients wanted both bedrooms to have water views, Brown says. This slider gives them a view right from the bed.

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Ferzoco and his team filled the primary bedroom with soft, sunset-inspired corals, pinks and peaches. In lieu of a closet, custom adjustable cabinetry surrounds the bed. There’s additional built-in hanging storage next to the sliders.

Behind the sheer curtain, a blackout shade recesses into a pocket above the window.

The primary bathroom has a bidet toilet, a shower and walls covered in creamy zellige tiles reminiscent of oyster shells.

The single vanity is painted a watery green with blue and gray undertones. Zoom in to see the pretty swirl inside the vessel sink.

Vanity paint: Jasper Stone, Sherwin-Williams

The other bathroom has a vessel sink and bidet toilet and aquamarine wall tiles. Its warm, medium-toned wood vanity calls to mind the wall paneling found in old beach cottages.

As in the primary bedroom, the second bedroom’s two twin beds are built in, and they share a padded headboard, which gives them a unified look. Each bed has a leather-and-wood wall sconce, and built-in cabinets on the opposite wall provide storage.

In order to satisfy the clients’ request that each bedroom have a water view, Brown sought — and won — special approval to bump out one of the walls by 2 feet.

When asked how designing a vacation home is different from designing a primary home, Brown puts it simply: Vacation homes have more toys. “So we want to be able to make that lifestyle easy,” he explains. Here, that meant building sheds for bikes, kayaks and other recreational equipment, as well as this red cedar outdoor shower.

“Coming back from the beach, you don’t even have to come into the house,” Brown says. “You can rinse off before you come in, get all the sand and salt off and just make the durability of the house much easier, and also the maintenance [and cleaning] of it much easier.”

With encouragement from the designers, what started as a fairly simple landscaping plan snowballed into a true entertainer’s backyard, with an outdoor kitchen and multiple seating and dining areas.

The homeowners can host upward of 10 people at the dining table, or sit in the lounge area and have cocktails and appetizers. These extra outdoor rooms make the small cottage “live” like a much larger home.

Brown credits Gregory Lombardi Design for maximizing the functionality of the small lot. “They learned all the cues. We started inside, and they just ran with it [to create] these special moments and spaces that the clients were after,” he says. “Everything just keep singing when it goes outside.”