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The Architectural Beauty of South Walton Beach Townsby Richard Frisbie
Beaches of South Walton Once Upon A Town Fish Out of Water - Water Front Dining in Santa Rosa "America's Greenest Airport" |
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 Join us on Facebook Copyright 1995-2010 TravelLady Magazine |
Route 30-A, running East and West on the Gulf shore of Walton County, is a newly designated Scenic Highway in Florida. A recent trip on 30-A showed me how innovative the planned communities along it have become.
My base of operations was Seaside, arguably the most famous of all the communities. Anyone who has seen the movie "Truman", or is familiar with its premise of a TV show secretly observing Jim Carey's "perfect life in a perfect town", know why they chose Seaside to film. Seaside is perfect.
Given enough time, interest and money, a perfect community can be created. Problems usually stem from trying to retrofit existing urban areas. When James Fenimore Cooper's father, William, laid out his plans for Cooperstown, New York, he included lot sizes that encouraged different uses, creating a need for neighbors to interact and a market for what each produced. Merchants, professionals, and farmers all had a place in the grand scheme of urban living. The community that survived for hundreds of years is today called one of the most livable towns in America.
In the case of Seaside, its design strength is the attention to the same details Cooper perfected. The commercial district surrounds the central green, which is the community center. The beachfront is preserved, and imminently livable little neighborhoods were created within the town as a whole. The paving is porous, minimizing runoff. No building may be more than 4 stories high. The houses all look as if they could be in New England. Their colors, with one notable exception, are all derived from the sea -- gentle pinks, tans and blues -- all soothing pastels. The one exception has a wall of purple facing the highway, with a blue and green front facing the business district. The purple was covered for the filming of "Truman" and replaced when the architect insisted that it was part of the original design. A simple semantic solution is to call it not purple, but beach plum, and the symmetry of the community is restored.
This whimsy, also necessary for a perfect village, is further evident in the Airstream trailers permanently parked on the highway in front of the village green. They are an extension of the commercial district that surrounds the central green, which is actually an amphitheater for community events, concerts and a weekly farmer's market. Under a canopy of trees, these classic trailers house what passes for fast food here. No chains can build in Seaside because local law requires businesses to be locally owned and operated. The smoky aroma of barbecue, the tang of fresh fruit drinks, and the smell of potatoes deep frying invite beach-goers to sit in the shade and enjoy a snack. 
When I checked into my room at Inn By The Sea, in Seaside, I saw the name Vera Bradley on the sign. My second floor suite, called "Sunset", was one of the "unique" rooms, with peaked ceilings where the wallpaper went from the floor all the way to the peak. It was a charming look, and the rooms were spacious, but I'd never seen anything like it before. An employee explained that Vera Bradley's first job was as a paperhanger for a design firm. Her love of wall coverings can be traced back to those early years. She went on to design wallpaper patterns of her own. Today, fabrics in her designs are used for women's and men's clothes, accessories, luggage, upholstery, and table dressings. Whole rooms with the Vera Bradley "look" are featured in home, garden and architectural magazines. The Inn itself features a different Vera Bradley design in each of the guest quarters. Besides the Inn, all the homes are individually owned and furnished. Some house permanent residents and some are seasonal, with many of those available for rentals when the owners aren't in residence. 
Automobiles are discouraged in Seaside. Streets exist, but with little delineation between street and sidewalk the distinction is blurred. Pathways behind buildings crisscross the community like a spiderweb. Pedestrian and bicycle traffic can pass throughout the town on the cinder paths. These also lead to the beach, and, in the other direction, through the nature preserve behind all the houses. In this manner, one could almost go from community to community along 30-A without using the highway.
The adjacent community of Santa Rosa Beach has the same beautiful beaches on the gulf, for sure, but also is on one of South Walton's 17 rare dune lakes. I bicycled through Seaside's nature preserve next-door to the WaterColor Resort's wharf on the lake where the national headquarters of YOLO Boarding is located. I've surfed and kayaked before, and I own 2 canoes, so the idea of standing on a board paddling on the water sounded like fun. With the addition of an extra-long-handled paddle, I found myself almost walking on the surface of the water, gliding through the waterlilies in bloom, enjoying the unusual perspective this erect sport affords. The fresh water and brackish water of the dune lakes offer great fishing, bird watching and boating opportunities, beside YOLO Boarding. It was a nice break from the architecture and urban design aspects of my tour.
Perhaps the most distinctive features of Seaside are nine architecturally designed beach pavilions. Barrier sand dunes protect the community from coastal storms and tidal surges. The pavilions are visually stimulating bridges over the dunes to the smooth white sand beach below. International architectural competitions were held to find the right designs, with each structure maintained by the neighborhood it serves. Each is distinctly different, with three standing out. David Coleman designed the obelisk-looking Coleman Pavilion near the center of town. The Tupelo Pavilion, designed by Ernesto Buch, is used so often in advertisements it is recognized as the symbol for Seaside and Florida's beaches. The Natachez Beach Pavilion combines iconic beach symbols of waves and umbrellas in Steve Badanes' and Jim Adamson's whimsical design.
Each neighborhood in Seaside centers on a broad path/street/bike trail that leads to the sea. Not only does this allow the sea breezes to cool the neighborhood, but it creates a vista down the street to each neighborhood's beach pavilion. The beach pavilions of Seaside are a matter of pride to the entire community. In fact, Seaside's people-friendly design is part of the curriculum in architecture schools, and copied in progressive communities everywhere.
Building on Seaside's success are several other beach communities along the historic 30-A. Rosemary Beach has more of a European than a New England feel to it. Narrow curving streets with 3 and 4 story balconied facades fronting them twist through the commercial district that straddles the tree-lined 30-A. The surrounding residential streets harbor 2 and 3 story elegant residences, most with garages on the ground floor and views of the beach from the upper levels. Again, a central collecting place for community events was created, but here it is just before the protecting beach dunes. Little parking is provided for, with the idea of encouraging foot and bicycle traffic instead of automobiles. Rosemary Beach is a thoroughly walkable and environmentally friendly community.
Just down the road is the newest addition to the list of 15 seaside towns in South Walton, Alys Beach. The architecture here is more Bermuda meets Antiqua, with central courtyards and white colonial concrete exteriors fronting on pedestrian walkways. The focus is pure sustainability with "Fortified" construction techniques designed to last for generation after generation; truly an enduring residential community. In Alys Beach, environmentally friendly energy conservation principles combine to present the future in housing design. Geothermal heating and cooling, solar collectors, reflective surfaces and window placement all work together for an economical and sustainable environment. 
Alys Beach is a people-friendly community. The rear of the residences open on a service alley lined with plane trees. Each creates a cool service area which leaves the front entrances invitingly free for neighbors walking and bicycling past. When it is completed, there will be over 600 villas and courtyard homes, as well as numerous restaurants, parks, pools and shops. The most recent amenity to open in Alys Beach is the very Mediterranean looking Caliza pool. With a bar, restaurant, cabanas, lap pool, whirlpool, and children's wading pool surrounding the region's largest saltwater pool, Caliza is fast becoming the recreation center of the community.
The South Walton beach town of Santa Rosa Beach is famous for its seafood, as the whole region is. Their best restaurant, Fish Out Of Water, located in WaterColor Resort, is one of the top 200 restaurants in Florida. One evening I had dinner in the wine cellar, a misnomer in that it was on the second floor with a wall of glass doors opening onto a porch overlooking the pool and beach below. The restaurant's policy is to pair ingredients in season, serving the ripest foods available. They'll serve a whole fish, or any part, raw, sautéed or wood grilled. During the incredibly fresh and delicious seafood dinner the waiter explained that the restaurant is committed to serving locally sourced farm fresh and ocean fresh food. They even sponsor Farmer's Dinners with the growers and fishermen who supplied the ingredients sitting at the table talking about restaurant and consumer supported agriculture (RSA & CSA) while you eat. It was great to be located so close to such a fabulous restaurant.
In keeping with the environmental theme of the South Walton Beach communities, "America's Greenest Airport" is scheduled to open in May of 2010 in nearby Panama City. It will be the first new airport to open in the US in twenty years, and is promised to have the first LEED certified Terminal Building in the nation. Direct flights will land there from all over the country.
For now, visitors from the Northeast must fly to a hub city to connect to flights to Fort Walton, a combination Air Force and Commercial airport 45 minutes from the beach communities of South Walton County. Car rentals are available at the airport, or taxi services can deliver you to the resort of your choice. From there a bicycle is all you'll need to explore the sugar sand and warm emerald waters of South Walton's beach communities.