Photography by Dana Hoff
This month’s feature home proves the point that sometimes mid-life has little, if anything, to do with downsizing at all. As popular a trend as it has been for some, for others, like Angie and Frank Ferrogine of Annapolis, life isn’t really a beach unless your 10 grandchildren and four grown children have the space to enjoy quality family time while they’re at the shore.
(If that last name sounds familiar, it may be because you own a particular type of car. Frank Ferrogine is the President and CEO of Volvo Cars Annapolis and Annapolis Subaru, and he and Angie are long-time Annapolis residents.) As much as they love their Naptown address, like many from our area, they also like to take advantage of the proximity we fortunately have to the Maryland and Delaware beaches.
Photography by Dana Hoff
Exacting Standards
Several years ago, however, they realized the beach home they owned in Maryland just couldn’t handle having extended company for 20 people, which is the number their immediate family circle grows to when all the spouses and children are in the house.
“And we just loved that house, too,” says Angie of the property they were forced to part with. “We had a home in Ocean City. We had outgrown the house. We have four grown children. They are all married and now we have 10 grandchildren. We needed to increase our space. Plus, we always wanted to live on Fenwick Island.”
And so off to Delaware’s narrow peninsula they went, with some exacting standards and a goal to create a place they would love as much as the home they were giving up.
To do this, they entrusted their goal to the team at Marnie’s Custom Homes of Bethany Beach, Delaware, and its founder, Marnie Oursler. The Ferrogines had known Marnie from her work on a friend’s home and liked what they saw. In the business since she was 22, Marnie comes from a long line of builders going back to her great grandfather.
Her custom homes team, now 15 years in the making, would need that creativity and acumen to take a tight parcel of land and build a home that would meet the requirements of a family who needed to forget about the beach home they had before.
Photography by Dana Hoff
For Two or 20
When designing any home, the owners’ wish-list will denote the floorplan, explains Oursler. “That’s a big conversation that we have to have with our clients initially.” Generally, she says, this starts with a question such as, “What are you going to be doing in the house and when?”
The Ferrogines are boating enthusiasts, entertain at home regularly, and would need the home to be keenly functional for just two people sometimes, and then 20 or more, at others. This made the concept of traffic flow via intuitive design, paramount.
A purposeful, open-concept plan with a few tweaks was Job One when it came to the home’s interior. In particular, the couple wanted to invert their primary living space so it would be situated on the second level to maximize the views.
“My husband and I wanted one-level living; even though we put it on the second floor. ” Angie says. “But we have an elevator. So, basically if it’s just my husband and I, everything is there for us on that one level.”
While open-plan living remains highly popular for new builds and visually has a conceptual simplicity, it is usually anything but that for the conscientious builder.
“This one was difficult. We had [to put] a gigantic ridge beam up in the kitchen (second) level,” explains Oursler.
The ridge beam becomes a subliminal structure running along parallel lines with the kitchen and dining room, and then flows in the main living area on the second floor. The result is an enchanting beach dwelling, which Angie says she put a traditional, Nantucket spin on with the décor.
Creamy white walls meet with rich, dark walnut floors throughout the main living space providing the base for incredibly light, airy, and tranquil bayside living. Textures of basket weave, knotty rope, and ivory damask play with various watery blues throughout the space.
The kitchen is Angie’s personally designed domain suited to her love of cooking and her knowledge of how the room would work best for her. While many families enjoy a huge center island in the kitchen, Angie says that concept was a non-starter for her.
“I entertain a lot and I have a lot of family…and that never works. I cook a lot and I can’t have people standing around an island.” Instead, she chose a peninsula because it acts like a natural barrier, yet the area is still open for casual conversation and is communal. That peninsula and the rest of the counters are topped with luscious lattice Pental quartz paired with a backsplash above the range crafted of Carrera marble subway tiles with pencil molding surround.
For Angie, a kitchen is best stocked with bowls and dishes in large drawers. As a result, there are many layers of drawers in her kitchen and few above-counter cabinets. Like many stylish homeowners these days, the Ferrogines have a kitchen within a kitchen, or a separate workstation equipped with smaller appliances at the ready, keeping the kitchen counters free of clutter.
Along with the formal dining space off the kitchen, the entire floor serves as a grand area for entertaining because a lovely screened-in porch area flows from the living room. The set of doors that then open to the second level deck were designed with clever corner details that provide a sense of nostalgia for a bygone era.
The 4,900-square-foot residence would ultimately provide two-and-a half levels of living with six bedrooms and five-and-a-half baths. The home’s lower level offers an additional living and recreation area, more bedrooms, and access to their personalized outdoor living area with an above-ground pool.
Photography by Dana Hoff
Photography by Dana Hoff
The Beach-Builder’s Challenge
Probably the most concerning aspect of the entire design, was the homeowners desire to have a swimming pool as part of their outdoor living space. Excavating what is normally necessary for an in-ground pool in an area already surrounded by water (the home is situated on Lighthouse Cove in Little Assawoman Bay) is a structural non-starter. The homeowners were not keen on having an above-ground pool, however, and they wanted to make sure that their choice would be as safe as possible for their young grandchildren.
Thus, the pool was elevated above the flood base and a custom-made rectangular pre-form pool was dropped into a raised deck. Angie says it was much harder to come by a pre-form rectangular shape, but that was a must-have so they could have the piece-of-mind and the utility of an automatic pool cover. Mission accomplished. The Ferrogines now enjoy a spacious outdoor living area with their desired pool, an outdoor kitchen and bar, plenty of room for dining and entertaining, and outdoor showers, which were an integral part of the home’s overall intuitive design. For utility, a mud room with cubbies just off the showers was added, keeping the guests from guessing where to go with wet clothes and keeping clutter to a minimum.
The patio and pool area opens into the family’s recreation and additional living space, along with four guest bedrooms, so every one of their grown children has a place to stay with their spouse for extended family gatherings. A super special bunk room and a playroom for the children is creatively located behind a hidden bookcase wall on the primary level, along with tranquil, bayside owners’ suite. Like the main living area, these second level rooms were designed with complementary details such as beamed ceilings. For extra texture, high-cathedral ceilings received a character-enhancing shiplap treatment.
The overall impression of the home is crisp, bright, and comforting, leaving the homeowners with a prevailing sense of ease and effortlessness.
The special considerations that provide that sense of ease and effortlessness on a year-round basis with a waterside vacation property, however, are anything but easy on the builder’s side of the equation. Inside and out, the home would require an extra level of protection from the elements and a well-thought-out plan to maintain the home at peak efficiency no matter the weather.
One of the most challenging elements of a beach house is the HVAC—heating and cooling for big open floor plans on the water with a lot of solar gain. “We have very hot summers and very cold winters,” Oursler explains. “So how do you build a house with a lot of glass and a lot of steel that will heat and cool efficiently and that won’t have a lot of air loss when the house is sealed up?”
Additionally, the weather must be accounted for, and everyone on this project got a dose of reality during the build, explains Angie. “A week before we settled on the property, we had Super Storm Sandy.” And while the homeowners were concerned about the impact, Angie says she felt better when Oursler appeared on-site in her waders ready to assess how their build withstood the storm. “We build to Hurricane 3 Level, with 110-mile-an-hour winds. So structurally we build, to that code and that wind rating,” Oursler says.
By the time Sandy hit the Delaware and Maryland beaches, it was recorded as Category 1 and 2 level, respectively, so while the home had some minor flooding issues, it withstood the worst of Sandy.
Creativity and modern engineering were key when it comes to keeping the home’s ceiling heights high, the views maximized, and the bulkheads minimized, all while constructing for HVAC efficiency and building strength.
The solutions involved very durable materials that can withstand the weather at the beach, which is much harsher, and insulate the home efficiently. Anti-corrosion hardware on anything on the exterior, high-density steel, cellular-based PVC, and composite materials that don’t expand or contract were key materials for this beach project.
Photography by Dana Hoff
Sunny Smiles Ahead
With all the elements accounted for, all the necessary safety features in place, and enough space to accommodate three generations, the Ferrogines are looking forward to many summers with their growing family in their Fenwick Island home, a place that Angie describes as livable and fun.
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