WEST MEETS EAST

CALIFORNIA BEACH HOUSE STYLE FINDS A HOME ON CAPE COD.

- KYLE HOEPNER

SOMETHING ABOUT THIS PARTICULAR STRETCH OF COASTLINE CAUGHT LIZ’S FANCY.

A dedicated runner, she had passed by it almost every morning for years as she traveled her usual route. “There are about ten houses on the little portion of beach,” she says, “and I ran always hoping that maybe, someday, I could find a house there.”

She and her husband Richard had already made perfectly pleasant digs for themselves and their children, about a mile away in the same picturesque town on Cape Cod’s eastern edge. But the prospect of a truly waterfront location—with nothing obstructing sightlines straight out into the Atlantic—beckoned.

Eventually a home on the coveted street came up for sale—but concerns about coastal erosion convinced the couple to withdraw their bid. Then they heard through a college friend who lived across the way that a second property, next door to the first, would soon be coming onto the market. This time they pounced.

The lot now firmly in their grasp, Liz and Richard initially planned a quick, cosmetic update to the 1970s-era structure already in place. It soon became clear, however, that a great deal of work would be needed, and at best they would still end up with a clutch of indifferent, low-ceilinged spaces—certainly not a result worthy of the glorious site.