It’s bittersweet to finish the photos for my upcoming book with Gibbs Smith Publishing called The Coastal Cottage. This summer took me to Whidbey Island in the Puget Sound and Carmel, that wonderful artist colony south of Monterey, California.
It has been a terrific experience to meet the owners and to see these wonderful small homes by the sea. More and more I recognize that if a small home is thoughtfully designed and built, there is no loss of enjoyment or function with less space.
I say bittersweet because the experience has been so wonderful and it’s drawing to completion. The excitement is anticipation to see what the designers do with my photographs and Ann’s words. I can’t wait to see the book next year.
So, here is a taster from my recent travels until the book comes out. Two homes are set on the coast of Whidbey and designed by Ross Chapin, famous for his cottage designs and equally famous for his concepts of pocket neighborhoods—livable fairly high-density garden communities where neighbors know neighbors. The other two are in Carmel and are historical. Both are at the water’s edge. One is a stone cottage dating to 1928, and the other is the Walker House, Frank Lloyd Wright’s cabin on the rocks in the Pacific, designed in 1948.
— Scot Zimmerman