CHASING LO TYDE

PSD ARCHITECTS AND INTERIOR DESIGNER CAROLYN THAYER CREATE A SUMMER BEACH HOME FOR A FAMILY ON CAPE COD.

- NANCY A. RUHLING

At the end of a long drive stands a Cape Cod house inspired by 20th-century beach cottages that perfectly blends the classic and the contemporary.

The front of the twin-tower house, for a family with three children who love the outdoors, is clad in larger Alaskan yellow cedar shingles and oversized windows to subtly and slightly reduce the home’s scale. In the back, walls of glass, crowned by dainty muntins, a traditional and timeless touch, turn the waterfront into a real-time mural.

“The site was a diamond in the rough,” says Aaron Polhemus, owner and CEO of Cape Cod–based Polhemus Savery DaSilva (PSD), a fully integrated architecture, landscape architecture, construction, and property services firm.

PSD helped the clients select the property and then designed and built a new house and accompanying landscape.

“We created a really special design for the home and the overall site that works well for the family,” Polhemus says.

The property, which was overgrown with vegetation and covered with concrete slabs from its days as a landing field, was home to a 1957 two-bedroom ranch in questionable condition that was used as a rental.

It was the water views that sold the family. “They are beautiful here, and so are the sunsets,” the homeowner says. “We wanted a house where you open the front door and see through to the water.”

In addition to the main house, the property, which spreads across an acre, has a second structure that includes a two-car garage, a pool house/changing area with powder room, and a second-floor guest house.

To create a unified and welcoming property that ties together the main house and guest house, PSD also created a series of outdoor spaces that the family can enjoy in all types of weather.