Houzz Tour: Designer Builds His Family Home Near the Beach

Photos by Atlantic Exposure

House at a Glance
Who lives here: Designer Tim Tice, his wife and their two children
Location: Bethany Beach, Delaware
Size: 3,426 square feet (318 square meters); three bedrooms, 3½ bathrooms
Architectural designer: Tim Tice of Greenroom Consultants
Contractor: Dion Lamb of CRx — The Cure for the Common Build

Here’s the view of the house from the Salt Pond at twilight.

The lot’s location within a flood zone was challenging. Dion Lamb of CRx — The Cure for the Common Build served as the contractor on the project. The building sits atop 4 feet of dirt that was trucked in, and the main floor is 4 feet above the ground. Lamb built the house on pylons that extend 15 feet into the ground.

“I generally appreciate traditional architecture, but I wanted this house to be more modern and pared down in the details,” Tice says. “I like the simple look of gabled rooflines and did not want complex rooflines on this house.” But he also took inspiration from the area’s more traditional, original beach cottages. “Old-school Bethany Beach homes have red cedar shakes that are hand-split and rougher than the white cedar shingles seen on newer beach cottages,” Tice says. “So we used hand-split red cedar shakes and went as rough as possible with those.”

Raising houses like this in a way that’s aesthetically pleasing is no easy feat. The designer addressed that by narrowing the steps as they go up and by adding a front porch covered by a trellis partway up the front facade. This gives the eye something to land on rather than noticing how high the front entry is.

The right side of the house is the kids wing, which has two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a rec room. “We have a door that fully shuts this wing off, so when the kids grow up, we can shut off this part of the house when we’re not using it,” Tice says.

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With water views on the opposite side of the house, the front porch doesn’t get a lot of use, Tice says. But it’s a good outdoor retreat when the wind picks up on the water-facing side.

“My wife is passionate about plants,” Tice says. So he gave her as many spots as possible to tend to them inside and out. Out front, cedar-shake-covered planters line the steps so she can create container gardens.

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Inside the house, the views open up to the water, with a bar to the right and a courtyard to the left. The house looks out on the Salt Pond, located behind Route 1. That road occupies a narrow strip of land between the pond and the beach. The house is about three-quarters of a mile from the beach.

“I designed this house very specifically to the way we wanted to live in it today and for the future when the kids move out,” Tice says. Just out of frame to the left is a door that leads to the kids wing. Its hallway has a hidden door, and when the kids leave the nest, the couple can completely shut the wing off and occupy the rest of the house.

“We live very casually,” Tice says. “Our lifestyle is very relaxed and there is zero formality with our family.” When the couple entertain, guests can grab a drink here at the bar before venturing farther into the home. The bar has a live-edge walnut waterfall countertop. “This was provided by a local company,” Tice says. “It was a unique piece of wood that is 18 feet long and 22 inches wide.” The soapstone countertop inside the bar also has a waterfall edge on this side for a clean look.

The bar has a fun retro vibe with an eye-catching botanical wallpaper. There’s a full fridge, a bar sink, an ice maker and a dishwasher. “The walnut and soapstone counters are the only counters that are different from all the other white quartz counters in the house,” Tice says. “They really suit the retro vibe in here.” The designer recommends always paying a few dollars to order wallpaper samples, to see how they look in different lights and to feel the texture.

“We love the bar,” Tice says. “The kids eat pancakes here in the morning when they want to catch a show, or sometimes we’ll have dinner and a movie at the bar as a family.”

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Across from the bar is a small courtyard. “This is a work in progress, but it was another opportunity to give my wife space for plants,” Tice says. “It’s also great to get a drink at the bar and move the group out here.” The fire pit is ethanol-fueled. Future plans include installing stainless steel trellises on the exterior walls and training vines to climb them.

This photo also shows the front door, which is sapele wood. “I really wanted something that felt like a heavy-duty door,” Tice says. A sidelight lets in natural light and allows a peek through the house to the water from outside.

Heading down the front hallway, the kitchen, the dining room and a sitting room are in one open space. A large screened-in porch occupies a long portion of the back of the house. Expansive sliding doors forge a strong connection between the great room and the porch, as well as the views across the marsh to the water.

The kitchen has a clean and simple look, with white quartz countertops and streamlined cabinetry. Tice wanted the views clear, so he kept the light fixtures relatively simple and didn’t place pendant lights over the island.

The ceilings are 10 feet high throughout the house, except for vaulted ceilings in the primary bedroom and the rec room. The large sliding doors that open to the screened-in porch extend all the way up to kiss the ceiling. This allowed for the most expansive views of the marsh and the pond. All the windows and glass doors on the house are by Loewen. They have aluminum frames on the exterior and Douglas fir frames on the interior.

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Throughout most of the house, Tice used white-painted knotty pine shiplap on the walls and Douglas fir on the ceilings. “I used the Douglas fir to tie into the windows and doors,” he says. “Because we live very casually, I specified ‘rough side out’ for the wood. This was for two reasons. One, because I wanted to maximize texture. Two, because it ages better. When things look more perfect, any dings will jump out at you.”

The screened-in porch is a favorite with everyone in the family. It has the home’s only fireplace, which is wood-burning, and electric heaters in the ceiling. “We moved in back in February and we fired up all the heaters, built a fire and hung out on the porch. We use it all year except on the coldest of nights,” Tice says. The family often gathers for meals here.

A comfortable indoor-outdoor sofa provides a place to gather around the fire. The door next to the fireplace opens to the pool deck.

On the exterior, Tice mixed the red cedar shakes with white cedar vertical siding. “I thought using the two would add contrast and a more modern look,” he says. “I did not treat either of these materials, so when they age, the white cedar will go gray, while the red cedar will lean more chocolatey. There will be more contrast between the two long-term.”

Tice is passionate about sustainability. The house has a tight envelope and is highly energy-efficient. Tice put 2 inches of rigid foam insulation outside the framing on the walls, under the house and under the roof. The glass is double-paned. There’s no gas in the house; everything is electric. Tice designated a spot for solar panels on a hidden south-facing roof. “I want to see what my energy bills are for a year before I install them,” he says.

The pool and its surrounding deck are also raised off the ground.

The door that divides the master suite from the main living area extends fully to meet the 10-foot ceiling. This sitting area leads to the couple’s bedroom.

“This is my wife’s domain,” Tice says of the sitting area. “I may pass through here, but it’s her spot to take a break, close the door, put on a record, play some video games and chill out. She wanted a retro vibe and lots of plants, so that’s where the green sofa and record player came in.”

The couple’s bedroom was a bit of an experiment. “We both like to sleep in complete darkness without any natural light coming through,” Tice says. The two openings to his wife’s chill-out room can be fully closed off, and there are no windows. “Most of my clients would never go for this in a million years, but we have zero regrets about doing it this way,” Tice says.

The gabled roof allowed for a vaulted ceiling. In terms of finishes, the bedroom is the inverse of the rest of the house. It has natural wood on the walls and white-painted planks on the ceiling.

The tub and shower in the primary bathroom are contained within a wet-room area, which has a shower big enough for two, complete with two shower heads. A pair of body jets sits beneath each shower head. The slits at the bottom are steam shower outlets.

The entire wet room is tiled from floor to ceiling in zellige tile in a gridded pattern. “Everything behind the glass can get wet,” Tice says. “This is also a great room for my wife’s plants. They thrive in here.”

Tice’s wife found the floor tile, which has a beautiful brass inlay. The bathroom also has two toilet rooms. The glass door on the left leads to an outdoor shower.

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The outdoor shower is tucked to one side of the deck.