Sand Torini House Plans
Building restrictions on Fernandina Beach inside the Coastal Construction Control Line (CCCL) are just that... RESTRICTIVE! No building can exceed a height of 35 feet. Minimum side setbacks are 10% of the width of the lot. With a 75 foot lot, that means we have to have at least a 7.5 foot setback on each side. That means our house can be no wider than 60 feet, BUT if we go taller than 25 feet, the side setbacks are increased by 1 foot for each foot taller than 25 feet. The front of the house can be no closer to the street than 25 feet and we cannot encroach on the dunes in the back of the house. The elevator shaft does not count against the height restriction. SO, if we keep the house under 25 feet, our maximum house dimensions are 28 feet x 60 feet.
Our first thought was to build a one level home on stilts so we started looking for sample house plans that would fit our dimensions. What we discovered was 28 x 60 is the exact size of a double-wide mobile home. We found a few home layouts we thought might suffice, but before we went down that road, we decided to visit a mobile home dealer and walk through a double-wide to see how it felt. It felt SMALL! We decided we would need to go 2 stories which would open up a lot more flexibility in our design.
We found some free online home design software. First we drew a box the exact dimensions that we thought would fit within the setback requirements. Then we each came up with our own design for the interior space. We compared our designs and chose elements from both to come up with a design for the living levels.
Tony had his heart set on building what he refers to as a beach bunker. The construction technique he chose is called Insulated Concrete Form (ICF). Basically the house is built out of hollow foam blocks. Concrete is poured between the blocks and the blocks are left in place to provide insulation.
We chose John Dodd as our architect. We took our crude design to his office so he could work his magic. John suggested several changes to our design that made sense. He thought we needed a structural engineer to ensure that the massive chunk of concrete we were proposing would be sound. We chose Geoff Gartner of Alexander Grace Consulting, Inc. as our architectural engineer. John and Geoff worked together to get a set of plans that we could submit to the state for approval. The plans were submitted at the end of March 2017.
We were hopeful that we would get our approval in time to submit the plans to the city before the new flood plain map went into effect in August. The new flood plain map would put our property in the flood plain and change some of the building requirements, sending us back to the drawing board.
Once we had the final plans, it was time to select a builder. We wanted to find a builder who was experienced with ICF construction. We spotted an ICF home being built on our street made a note of the builder, Call Construction. We met with Brent Rewa of Call and submitted our plans to him for a quote. We asked for a recommendation from one of the ICF manufacturers and were referred to Joel Johns of Green Built out of Jacksonville. We submitted our plans to Joel as well. They both got busy working up a quote for us.
A couple of months later, we were walking Lucy on the beach and met a couple who had just finished building a home on the beach and were raving about their builder, in fact, they were having dinner with him that night. We thought that was a good sign if, after completing construction, they still liked their builder enough to have dinner together! We submitted our plans to Hector Van Lennep of Castleton Homes. Hector had to hustle to put together a quote since the other guys were almost ready to present theirs.
All three presented their bids in early July. There was a significant difference in the cost. Hector's bid was the least costly and we really liked his approach. He had scrutinized our plans and found some issues that needed to be resolved with the architect. We announced our selection of Hector and Castleton Homes to the other two builders on July 9th. By this time, we had our state approval (YEAH!!!) and it was up to Hector to get the plans submitted to the city for approval.
Hector got the plans submitted on July 25th so we were out of the woods on the Flood Zone issue, but the city had lots of questions before they would issue a permit. Our architect had to spend another 18 hours (not cheap!) answering questions and making revisions to comply with city requirements.
The city finally issued our permit on October 15th and we were ready to begin!
Here's what the house will look like. Picture it in white stucco with blue trim and a blue dome over the elevator shaft. The large windows and decks will be on the ocean side.
The ground level front entrance will be inside a covered courtyard with a fountain. You will come in and go directly upstairs. There is a one car garage to the right and a shorter garage for beach toys, scooters and maybe a small car on the left.
The second floor will be the living and master bedroom level. Our deck is oddly shaped because of the CCCL restrictions.
The third floor is the bedroom and craft room level. There is a 2nd master on this level and a smaller bedroom, both with views of the ocean. The large open area will be our craft room and will house my sewing studio and Tony's hobby area. We put a closet in this room so that it could be used as another bedroom if needed. The exterior stairs on the deck lead to the roof. We would have preferred to have the interior stairs lead to the roof but an interior staircase counts against the height restriction.
The top level will be our party deck and will have the generator and A/C equipment.
Stay tuned!
Our first thought was to build a one level home on stilts so we started looking for sample house plans that would fit our dimensions. What we discovered was 28 x 60 is the exact size of a double-wide mobile home. We found a few home layouts we thought might suffice, but before we went down that road, we decided to visit a mobile home dealer and walk through a double-wide to see how it felt. It felt SMALL! We decided we would need to go 2 stories which would open up a lot more flexibility in our design.
We found some free online home design software. First we drew a box the exact dimensions that we thought would fit within the setback requirements. Then we each came up with our own design for the interior space. We compared our designs and chose elements from both to come up with a design for the living levels.
Tony had his heart set on building what he refers to as a beach bunker. The construction technique he chose is called Insulated Concrete Form (ICF). Basically the house is built out of hollow foam blocks. Concrete is poured between the blocks and the blocks are left in place to provide insulation.
We chose John Dodd as our architect. We took our crude design to his office so he could work his magic. John suggested several changes to our design that made sense. He thought we needed a structural engineer to ensure that the massive chunk of concrete we were proposing would be sound. We chose Geoff Gartner of Alexander Grace Consulting, Inc. as our architectural engineer. John and Geoff worked together to get a set of plans that we could submit to the state for approval. The plans were submitted at the end of March 2017.
We were hopeful that we would get our approval in time to submit the plans to the city before the new flood plain map went into effect in August. The new flood plain map would put our property in the flood plain and change some of the building requirements, sending us back to the drawing board.
Once we had the final plans, it was time to select a builder. We wanted to find a builder who was experienced with ICF construction. We spotted an ICF home being built on our street made a note of the builder, Call Construction. We met with Brent Rewa of Call and submitted our plans to him for a quote. We asked for a recommendation from one of the ICF manufacturers and were referred to Joel Johns of Green Built out of Jacksonville. We submitted our plans to Joel as well. They both got busy working up a quote for us.
A couple of months later, we were walking Lucy on the beach and met a couple who had just finished building a home on the beach and were raving about their builder, in fact, they were having dinner with him that night. We thought that was a good sign if, after completing construction, they still liked their builder enough to have dinner together! We submitted our plans to Hector Van Lennep of Castleton Homes. Hector had to hustle to put together a quote since the other guys were almost ready to present theirs.
All three presented their bids in early July. There was a significant difference in the cost. Hector's bid was the least costly and we really liked his approach. He had scrutinized our plans and found some issues that needed to be resolved with the architect. We announced our selection of Hector and Castleton Homes to the other two builders on July 9th. By this time, we had our state approval (YEAH!!!) and it was up to Hector to get the plans submitted to the city for approval.
Hector got the plans submitted on July 25th so we were out of the woods on the Flood Zone issue, but the city had lots of questions before they would issue a permit. Our architect had to spend another 18 hours (not cheap!) answering questions and making revisions to comply with city requirements.
The city finally issued our permit on October 15th and we were ready to begin!
Here's what the house will look like. Picture it in white stucco with blue trim and a blue dome over the elevator shaft. The large windows and decks will be on the ocean side.
The ground level front entrance will be inside a covered courtyard with a fountain. You will come in and go directly upstairs. There is a one car garage to the right and a shorter garage for beach toys, scooters and maybe a small car on the left.
The third floor is the bedroom and craft room level. There is a 2nd master on this level and a smaller bedroom, both with views of the ocean. The large open area will be our craft room and will house my sewing studio and Tony's hobby area. We put a closet in this room so that it could be used as another bedroom if needed. The exterior stairs on the deck lead to the roof. We would have preferred to have the interior stairs lead to the roof but an interior staircase counts against the height restriction.
The top level will be our party deck and will have the generator and A/C equipment.
Stay tuned!
Love this BJ! Enjoying watching all of the progress. Can't wait to see the finished project :)
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