Callaway Cottage

seaside, florida

"SEASIDE IN SUMMER,"  says Mark Callaway, "is a bright and intense experience."  But the Callaway's Florida beach house, Frumious Bandersnatch, has dark mahogany ceilings and antique heart-pine floors, an unusual choice in a town brimming over with color.  And despite its lighthearted name, drawn from Lewis Carroll's nonsense "Jabberwocky," the house is built with a seriousness of purpose, with reverence for family and history.

"This is a house built for generations," says Mark Callaway.  "We will pass it on to our children and they to theirs."  It was also made to suit an active family, with space enough for each of the four children to bring a friend.

Its architecture is drawn from the vernacular houses of the early decades of this century.  Part New England and part southern, it has a certain sober symmetry and a stepped-up classical portico with Doric columns.  Inside, however, the house is akin to an ocean-going yacht.  Doors are tongue-and-groove.  Cabinets and furniture are handcrafted, either built in or bolted down, as if to protect them in a sudden squall.  Storage is in wall compartments and floor "hatches."  Decks are teak.  "The place is at once shipshape and rather sophisticated.

-Excerpt from House and Garden Magazine, July 1998