A beach home's open design invites entertaining | OregonLive.com

As a student at the University of Portland, Eric Mulligan? spent his weekends following the surf from Seaside to Manzanita.

For four years, he and his buddies filled their days finding just the right waves and spent nights camping out.

Graduation and starting his career in the building industry didn't dull his love of surfing -- or the coast. So four years ago, when he found an empty lot in the heart of Manzanita, he bought it and tapped the folks at Portland-based Scott/Edwards Architecture to design his dream beach home.

He'd long considered what would work best for a floor plan and how the house would be used.

He wanted a warm, contemporary space that could handle large groups of family and friends, be easy to maintain and have a strong indoor/outdoor connection.

"I had the lot for about a year," Mulligan says, adding that he had met S/EA principal Kelly Edwards,? who had done some work for him on his Dunthorpe home, and the two talked about the beach property.

"We talked about a contemporary design. I explained the lot and how we had this opportunity to get this south exposure ... and pick up the sunlight. I knew I wanted a contemporary house and looked through S/EA's portfolio and thought, 'This is it.'"

S/EA designer Rick Barry came up with about three iterations of a plan, Barry says, including one with a slanted roofline. He says Mulligan was easy to work with because of his strong preferences, and they soon landed on a final design.

"It was really great because they knew what they wanted," Barry says of Mulligan and his wife, Virginia. ?

The majority of the house's 2,200 square feet is dedicated to the great room with its two-story-plus ceiling, walls of windows, sliding doors to the side yard and patio, open kitchen with a large island and a dining area.

The open design of the home's common areas was a must for the Mulligans, who regularly fill their home with guests, Virginia Mulligan? says.

"It's like the community house," she says as two of her girlfriends visit with each other on the patio. "It functions really well."

This year, for the Fourth of July celebration, they had 25 folks over and the flow was perfect, she says.

Although not gigantic, the house lives large because of the volume of the space.

"We spend a lot of time in the great room. Everyone can be doing their own thing, but we're all still together," Eric Mulligan says. "It's great. We have a lot of friends and we entertain out here all the time. ... We'll have salmon on the grill, and people coming off the beach from surfing, and kids are everywhere."

There is a guest bedroom and bath on the main level and three bedrooms and two baths upstairs for the family. Along with the bedrooms upstairs is an open loft space that will become a movie and television-viewing spot when the kids -- Chloe, 5, and Sam, 2 -- get older, Eric says.

The bedrooms are small and efficient -- exactly how Eric wanted to use the space -- and each of the kids' rooms has a small loft space tucked in under the sloping ceiling. Chloe calls hers the secret spot.

Both Eric and Virginia have found the house works exactly as they'd hoped. Virginia says it's not too dissimilar to their home in Dunthorpe; Eric -- who, along with several tradesman he knows from his commercial work, built the house -- says he can't think of a thing he'd have done differently.

Holding out a dog-eared business card, he says that nearly every time he arrives at the house, he finds such a card tucked into the doorjamb asking who designed and built the house.

"I have a stack of Rick's cards to give out," he says.

Standing in the great room, hands on his hips, Eric looks out the window and recalls those surfing days, camped out along the beach.

"I always thought: 'One of these days, I'd love to have a place.'"

-- Bridget A. Otto; on Twitter

RESOURCE:

ARCHITECT: Rick Barry ?
FIRM: Scott/Edwards Architecture; 2525 E. Burnside St.
CONTACT: 503-226-3617; seallp.com/

Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/hg/index.ssf/2012/07/a_beach_homes_open_design_invi.html

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