Boston Globe, Your Home - March 2, 1997 The location of a '70s-style beach house called for an energetic makeover by Gail Ravgiala The house catches the eye as you drive up the hill. Even on a dreary winter day, its deck and cheery gazebo beckon. Pull into the driveway and the sound of surf draws like a magnet. The smell of the sea lets you know there must be something magnificent beyond the bluff. If, as the real estate people say, location is everything, this house has it all. Set above a beach that stretches before it in both directions, the structure offers sweeping vistas of the pounding surf and the ocean beyond. But if you ask the owners, they will tell you that while they love the location, they didn't love the house until a major facelift turned their dreary 70's beach bungalow into a charming summer retreat worthy of its site. "We bought a view with a house," says the owner, recalling how he and his wife decided to buy a get-away cottage in the town where he has spent every summer of his life. No matter that the house was generic at best: two boxes formed into an L-shape with no architectural panache. They named it Las Brisas, the wind in Spanish. Appropriate enough for this windswept - sometimes storm swept - cliff. That was in 1975. With three children to raise and a house in the suburbs of Boston, the owners "lived with the many faults the house had," happy to spend 10 weeks a year near family and friends and the beach they loved. Then, in 1992, they met architect Joe Luna of Luna Design Group in Lynnfield and a plan for refreshing Las Brisas began to unfold. The owners had been thinking about doing something with the house for at least five years. They knew what the problems were: Despite enlarging the deck right after they purchased the house, it was never adequate; while the house was divided into separate living areas, one on each floor, access to the second-floor owners' quarters was via a staircase in the downstairs guest living room; lastly, the house simply had no sense of design. Inspired by neighboring summer houses, some with the bays, turrets and gable roofs of the grand Victorian beach houses often found in old New England resort towns, Luna began to plot the transformation. "The owners wanted something that reflected Nantucket Shingle Style houses, but with a contemporary edge," says Luna. "Despite the dreary state of the existing beach-bungalow-style house," he adds, "the location and the clients' openness to new ideas allowed ample opportunities for imagery." Luna looked at the project as an invitation to reinterpret traditional details. He began by moving the staircase outside the existing house into a new turret tower. This created private entries for both the owners and their guests while providing a dramatic focal point for the street side house. The tower, tucked into the corner of the L-shaped floor plan, extends above the roofline and is crowned by a covered observation deck, which in another era would have been the widow's walk. Inside, a custom bass-wood and fir staircase leads to the second floor. There a ship's ladder continues to the upper deck. The new configuration allowed the owners to add a much needed master bathroom in the upstairs unit. From there on, all the changes made were external. "The tower was the first concept Joe presented to us," says the owner. "After that," adds his wife, "it was like car fever… We thought, wouldn't it be nice to have that little red convertible?" So the project went forward. Down came the old deck and up went a new terrace and colonnade. Luna's system of simple white cylindrical columns ties the design scheme together and gives the house a classic look. Along the ocean side, a deck runs the length of the house and forms a kind of exterior gallery that leads to the spacious terrace. A hexagonal pavilion on the southeast corner of this open air platform adds Shingle Style flair while providing a shaded place to site and enjoy the view. "The pavilion provides a terminus," says Luna, "It finishes things off." It also makes the new deck configuration seem more intimate that its 1,288 square feet might imply. Open space and quiet nooks combine like a series of outdoor rooms. Of course having a great location can come at a price. In this case, the marine environment called for specialized materials that could stand up to the salt and dampness. Handrails and house trim are California redwood, for example, and all fasteners are stainless steel. Because the owners wanted to maximize their views across the new deck configuration, Luna devised a system of marine cable and turnbuckles instead of more conventional balusters or cross beams that would have obstructed the line of sight. "From inside the house," says the owner, "you don't get the beach view, but rather you see the railing and the sky and water. It gives you the sense of being on a ship." To add detail without a lot of expense, Luna created an architectural motif over the gable ends using vinyl lattice work to cut down on maintenance. "That gave the house a new level of animation without having to make major alterations in the original roof," says Luna. "Before this," says the wife, "we never felt it was our house." Adds her husband, "Now, we have a house with a view."