8 Charming Beach House Exteriors

Play With Contrast and Light

This three-level, Dutch Colonial take on a sea captain's home is a reminder that designing a beach house isn't always about overt references to the shore. Sometimes it's just about harnessing those soothing emotions that the ocean evokes.

Architect Bobby McAlpine and designer Susan Ferrier are known for a refined mix of muted shades with gradations from room to room. Their work is truly a study in contrasts—a balanced play of light and dark, hard and soft, earthy and airy. The look is fitting for the beach because it celebrates the best of what the coastal landscape offers: tranquil color, comforting texture, and romantic light.

Honor Your Home's History

This 800-square-foot, 19^th-century cottage in Key West's Old Town neighborhood is as classic as they come, with a low-slung tin roof, front porch, and white picket fence.

In keeping with the look of the historic neighborhood, where houses feature shutters and decorative elements in shades such as turquoise and coral, designer Blair Gordon used a conch shell pink for the exterior. "I wanted to stay true to the house's roots," he says. "I kept asking myself, 'Would Hemingway sleep here?'" He modernized the look by reversing the scheme, tempering the pink (Touch of Pink by Benjamin Moore) with a dark wood stain on the shutters and gray paint on the porch floors.

Create an Outdoor Living Space

This simple, shingled bungalow off the coast of Southport, North Carolina, features soft gray cedar shakes and a large wraparound porch that serves as an outdoor living room.

The porch ceiling and rafter rails' seafoam-hue (in Benjamin Moore's Barely Teal) puts a beachy spin on the soft gray exterior.

Invite in the Light

Taking a cue from sturdy sea captains' cottages, North Carolina architect Jason Bigelow built his own breezy, light-filled beach house that lives large in a compact space.

He borrowed the cottages' long, skinny floor plan—devised for cross breezes and streaming light—and fused it with the aesthetic of the modern Carolina vacation homes he designs for a living. Three-hundred and fifty square feet of porches, means plenty of spaces for enjoying ocean air.

Create a Sustainable Sanctuary

Despite being only nine years old, this cement beach cottage boasts a nostalgic appeal that's perfect for its idyllic location. "We really wanted to achieve the feel of a house from a bygone age," explains Helen Untiedt, who uses the home as a weekend getaway with her husband, David. "It was also important to us to create something with low environmental impact—using only natural materials." They called in sustainable expert John Barrett, who designed a modest abode with just enough solar power and clean-burning propane to run a water pump, kitchen appliances, and a few lamps. Here's how he built a retreat that honors the environment, as well as the home's seaside locale.

Keeping in line with the couple's desire for the use of natural materials, the walls and floors are formed from a mixture of white beach sand and cement, creating a soft, off-white backdrop for the vintage-chic interiors. "And you know the greatest thing about it?" enthuses Helen. "It never needs repainting. You can simply wash the walls down to freshen them up. It's not just an eco-friendly solution; it's pretty maintenance-free, too."

Welcome Natural Landscape

What lies half-hidden in a tidal estuary off the Colleton River is a low-slung compound of three cottages and a carriage house, joined by a covered breezeway running parallel to the river. Architectural designer James Strickland of Historical Concepts modeled his ideas after the scattering of barns, smokehouses, and sheds that accrues on plantation grounds. "It's a tin-roof kind of place—nothing like the grand plantation house," the homeowner says. "We wanted something that reflected Lowcountry traditions."

The home was designed around the existing live oaks; workers shoveled the foundation by hand and worked around the tree roots to ensure their survival. The design works to highlight the great romantic Southern character of the site.

Embrace the Classic Shingled Look

Classically picturesque, storybook perfect but never prim, this house exudes a happy balance between practicality and panache. The homeowners needed their beach house to have enough dexterity to handle sun, salt, and sand—plus all the wear and tear an active family can dish out—while maintaining its graceful cottage charm.

The result was an Americana mix of blue and white, with classic white trim, a refined gray-shingled facade, a white fence, and smart navy shutters.

Be Inspired By Spanish Colonial Design

Architect Lewin Wertheimer chose Spanish Colonial influences for a house standing alone on a tawny hillside 300 feet above the beach. Buff-colored stucco walls, dark wood beams, and a low-sloping terra-cotta roof stands in splendid isolation with virtually no other residence in sight, only views of the ocean.