Take a Look at This Curvy New Vacation Retreat on Longboat Key
The striking silhouette of the roof line.
Image: Ryan Gamma
It’s impossible to miss the architectural statement this residence makes at the tip of a quiet Longboat Key bayou, with its grand whooshing wave of a roofline that washes over the newly built home, a vacation retreat for a Provincetown, Massachusetts, couple.
“It’s serious architecture, but it’s lighthearted, not stuffy or pretentious,” says Jerry Sparkman of Sweet Sparkman Architecture and Interiors, who worked with the newly retired couple to fulfill their desire for something that, in the spirit of a vacation home, feels fun. “They said, ‘Hey, Jerry, this is our three-month-a-year house. We don’t need a lot, but we need art.’”
The open floor plan provides spectacular views from every angle.
Image: Ryan Gamma
Even though it’s geometrically complicated, the house is very simple, says Sparkman. And, unlike the more typical vacation homes built on Longboat Key over the past several years, it isn’t large. At 2,500 square feet, it has a sitting/dining area and galley kitchen in one high-volume open space, a master bedroom, two and a half baths, and a guest suite with a separate entrance accessible from outside the main home. (The homeowners screen films open-air on the long windowless outdoor wall that leads to the guest suite.)
This is Sparkman’s first monochromatic, all-white house, to evoke the beauty of the Greek isle of Santorini, he says, “sculptural elements against the blue sky.”
The unusual shape satisfied the new owners’ request for a fun house, one that exudes artistry.
Image: Ryan Gamma
The home was built up to meet FEMA standards, then gently terraced down to connect with the water, and the way it takes advantage of those water views—with a long-distance view of Sarasota Bay to the north and an intimate view of the mangroves to the east—gives one the feeling of floating. A loft in the main house looks out through that giant curve into the mangroves that line the bayou.
The architect says clients requiring smaller second homes “more focused on design and sustainability than square footage” is a growing trend. The sustainability comes from that wonderful curvy roofline, whose overhang shields the house from direct sunlight.
Clients and architect alike are delighted with the results, as Sparkman calls it: “life-size sculpture with appealing geometries and artful combination of form and space.”
Design Team
Architect of Record: Jerry Sparkman, AIA, NCARB
Interior Design: Eloise Abraham, Sweet Sparkman Architects
Landscape Design: John Wheeler Landscape, Inc.
Contractor: Dean Thompson, Inc.
