Shore living face to face with the ocean

When the Connors family decided to rebuild their Shore house in Avalon, they knew the most important element of the design was already in place - just outside their window.

"Our No. 1 goal was to capture the views," Terri Connors said. "We didn't want decks or awnings in the way. It was a very different concept, if you look at other houses that are on the beachfront. This is probably the only house on the island with 180-degree ocean views. You see the dolphins in the morning and the afternoon. The plan was, at each area of the house there was a different view to take in."

As she spoke, a pod of dolphins appeared in the surf as if to prove her point: This is about as close to living on the ocean as you can get without a hull.

A combination of the state-of-the-art technology and old-fashioned detailing, the house offers a double-gabled glass-and-steel embrace to the waterfront, but assimilates into its Shore surroundings with faade-length porches wide enough for rocking chairs and flared columns clad in cedar shakes.

In other words, said Mark Asher of Asher Associates Architects in Jenkintown and Stone Harbor, the goal was to please the Connorses - without alienating their neighbors.

"I used a sort of coastal vernacular, with natural materials and historical details that you would find in the turn-of-the-century homes that dotted this coast - but we just reimagined them," he said.

The question was how to marry those traditional elements with a modern glass box. "That's a tough marriage, and it usually ends poorly, frankly," he said. "But I think it was successful here."

The result is finished with a brick drive laid in a herringbone pattern with a lush grass median, and landscaping that fades into dune grasses, then beach beyond.

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Shore living face to face with the ocean