Seaside, FL

We spent the day in Seaside, FL. WARNING: Architectural rantings and discussions approaching!!!

Seaside is an unincorporated master-planned community on the western Florida panhandle. One of the first communities in America designed on the principles of New Urbanism, ot Neo-Traditional Town Planning, the town has become the topic of slide lectures in architectural schools and in housing-industry magazines world-wide, and is visited by design professionals (like me…) from all over.

The idea behind Seaside came in 1946, when the grandfather of future founder Robert S. Davis bought 80 acres of land along the shore of Northwest Florida as a summer retreat for his family. In 1978 Davis inherited the parcel from his grandfather, and aimed to transform it into an old-fashioned beach town, with traditional wood-framed cottages typical of the Florida Panhandle. Davis, his wife Daryl, and architectural partners Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company did painstakingly detailed research; they toured the south, studying small towns, armed with cameras, sketch pads, and tape measures; this became the basic for the planning of Seaside. While a few houses were built in 1982 to “test the waters”, the final master plan was complete around 1985.

The developers used the master plan to write their own zoning codes. Seaside’s commercial hub is located at the town center. The streets are designed in a radiating street pattern with pedestrian alleys and open spaces located throughout the town. There is a mix of uses and residential types throughout the community.

Individual housing units in Seaside are required to be different from other buildings, with designs ranging from styles such as Victorian, Neoclassical, Modern, Postmodern, and Deconstructivism. Seaside includes buildings by many different architects, including such notables as Robert A. M. Stern, Daniel Solomon, and Samuel Mockbee. Architect Scott Merrill designed the Seaside Chapel, an interfaith chapel and local landmark. Seaside has no private front lawns, and only native plants are used in front yards. The picket fences, required to be in front of all houses are all different from each other…

The result of all this work and planning is a remarkable little community. Streets are designed first for pedestrians, and secondarily for automobiles. We walked for hours, and every time we turned the corner a new delight was seen.

We arrived at about 9:00 on a Saturday morning. The farmers’ market was in full swing; we stopped by one of the many Airstream “Food Trucks” for a breakfast crepe and coffee…

We then headed out for a stroll along the beach. There are seven access points to the beach, each one with a tower-type structure to mark its presence, each tower designed by a different architect. This tower and stair is the ONLY public access to this stretch of beach…

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Yes, that’s right. The beach is private, and all the other access points have locked gates. Not only that, but there is a solid wall of buildings lining the Gulf Coast Highway (30A), so that as you walk or drive along the highway you wouldn’t even know the beach and the gulf are there! I think Florida could learn a thing or two from other States which treat the beaches and oceans as a public resource to be enjoyed by all…

But, in any case, the beach is beautiful, with the same powder sugar sand like we saw in Mississippi…

Lynda tested the waters. Cooler than what we expected, but warmer than any beach in California… (You did not know that California beaches and the Pacific Ocean there are cold???)