Gloucester Beach House

• City: Gloucester, Massachusetts
• Notes:

  The original house was a seasonal cottage built in 1900 that was in severe disrepair. However with its excellent seaside location the owners engaged Chace Architecture to evaluate the possibility of renovating and rebuilding the beach house into a new second home. We developed a plan to reconfigure the existing warren of small dark rooms on the first floor into an open living space, with access to the entry wrap-around porch and the rear yard patio. By manipulating a series of new and existing roof dormers, we were able to tuck three bedrooms, a guest and master bathroom into the second floor. The entire building, which was tenuously supported on rotten timber posts, was raised and leveled so that it could be set on new masonry foundation. The century old wooden structure above was entirely reinforced and re-built. While the new home retains much of the character of the early cottage, it is now a thoroughly modern and efficient home for the next century.