EDISTO BEACH HOUSE

LOCATION: Edisto Beach, SC

CLIENT: Private

AREA: 3,700 SF

STATUS: Complete

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER: Curry Engineers

PHOTOGRAPHY: Mike Habat Photo

DESCRIPTION: Edisto Beach House is a single-family residence located at the westernmost end of Edisto Island. The roughly quarter-acre inland site is mostly flat and backs onto the Town’s golf course. The design of the house is conceived as an alternative to an uninspiring vernacular model that has become increasingly ubiquitous in the flood-prone areas of the Lowcountry. Rather than treating FEMA requirements as an architectural opportunity, the common response has been to modify familiar house forms with minimal intervention to achieve flood-code compliance. The result is often a “normal” house that appears to have been lifted after the fact and placed on CMU piers, with the resulting open space infilled with wood louvers. A large entry stair is then typically added as an appendage to the front porch, creating a clumsy connection between grade and the elevated living floor above.

The Edisto Beach House takes a different approach, using FEMA requirements as the basis for its major architectural moves. Rather than treating them as constraints to be concealed, they are integrated into the design from the outset. The ground floor is activated by remaining entirely open, without the traditional louvered enclosure. Instead of functioning as an extended crawlspace reserved for back-of-house uses, the open ground floor becomes an extension of the outdoor living environment. Similarly, the stair that would typically extend from the front porch has been brought inside one of the two small pavilions on which the house sits. By relocating the point of entry toward the center of the plan, the front of the house is freed for a generous primary suite.

The structural columns supporting the elevated house are likewise expressed as the primary architectural ornament of the façade. Rather than reading simply as stilts beneath the house, the columns extend continuously from the ground floor to the roof, giving the elevations a strong vertical rhythm and tying the elevated structure into the overall architectural expression. Formally, the house is organized as a simple, elongated gabled volume that is split and shifted near its midpoint to preserve a large protected tree on the property. The house contains four bedrooms, four-and-a-half bathrooms, a flex space, and generous covered porches.