It could be Frodo’s house – if Frodo lived at the beach. But the Dune House, a two-unit duplex built into a hill on Florida’s Atlantic Beach, is designed to be used by people, not hobbits. From the front, the only sign that there is a house buried in the sand are the few steps leading to the entrances of each unit. From the back, the building, with it’s grassy exterior, would be imperceptible except for two large windows overlooking the beach.
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Beachfront Florida ‘Hobbit House’ Seeks Savior
Local architect William Morgan was just trying to preserve his view of the ocean when he designed the building in the early 1970s. “I lived next door to the property, and I wanted to look out and see the Atlantic. I didn’t want to see a house built next door to mine. I wanted to keep the landscape as near as possible to what was existing.”Mr. Morgan, who has designed other homes in the area, as well as the Florida State Museum of Natural History and the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, built the Dune House in 1975 and has rented it out ever since. Each unit consists of one bedroom and one bathroom. One rents for $1,200 and the other for $1,250. Over the years, Mr. Morgan estimates there have been a few dozen tenants, always singles or couples. “It really is not conducive to family living,” Mr. Morgan says. “The space is just not adequate.”
The entire structure is now on the market for $1.85 million. Now 78 years old, Mr. Morgan who still lives next door with his wife Bunny, is trying to pare down his obligations to prepare for retirement.
One unit is vacant, while the other is being rented out to Richard Shieldhouse, who started renting the $1,200-a-month unit last June. “I had this idea that I would be able to go out there and do my reading and writing,” he says of his intent to write his dissertation there. No luck. “When I walk into that place, it’s like taking a Valium. It’s hard for me to get anything done. I get so relaxed. I just go out there to enjoy myself.”
Mr. Shieldhouse is also on the board of the Florida chapter of DOCOMOMO, an international organization that works to document and conserve modernist neighborhoods and buildings, including the Dune House. The group, in conjunction with the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects, recently included the Dune House on a tour of notable buildings in the area.
Priced so high, renting out these two units at the rates Mr. Morgan’s charging wouldn’t make economic sense. A buyer would likely want to build some new kind of sand castle.
Mr. Morgan and others worry that the Dune House could be destroyed by a future buyer. The economics of beachfront property don’t favor places like this,” Mr. Shieldhouse says. “The land is so expensive that anybody who can afford it and anybody that would buy it would squeeze as much value out of it and they would build what they want.”
Mr. Morgan is waiting for a preservationist to make an offer on the property. “We are hoping to find someone who would have preservation of the property in mind, primarily. That would really be the optimum thing…rather than taking the first offer we get.”
 Bob DeMarco is a citizen journalist and twenty year Wall Street veteran. Bob has written more than 500 articles with more than 11,000 links to his work on the Internet. Content from All American Investor has been syndicated on Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Pluck, Blog Critics, and a growing list of newspaper websites. Bob is actively seeking syndication and writing assignments. |
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